jjm Ip 













THE LIBRARY 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 

LOS ANGELES 

IN MEMORY OF 
EDWIN CORLE 



PRESENTED BY 
JEAN CORLE 







ramerc\&gt; path 



A STORY OF NEW YORK 



BY 



JOHN SEYMOUR WOOD 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1892 



COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



PRINTED AT THE 
APPLETON PRESS, U. S. A. 



" Separate what comes ? Fust it s like the 
circulation of your blood a-stoppin all goes 
wrong. Then there s misunderstandin sye ve 
both lost the key. Then, behold ye, there s birds 
o prey hoverin over each on ye, an it s which II 
be snapped itp fust. Then, oh dear ! oh dear ! 
it be like the devil come into the world again." 
MRS. BERRY, IN RICHARD FEVEREL. 



GRAMERCY PARK. 




i. 

ACK DE FORD wandered along 
the sunny side of Irving Place, 
northward, until he found him 
self presently in the maze of 
Gramercy Park. He was quite early, this 
bright May morning, and, as he was not 
required to be at his office before half -past 
nine, he had determined to take the ele 
vated at Twenty-third, instead of Fourteenth 
Street, as was his wont. The high iron 
fence around the pretty square, and the 
apparent absence of any entrance or gateway, 
gave the solitary couple whom he saw walk 
ing within the enclosure the air of prisoners. 
He stood a moment gazing absently at the 
white, pretty fountain in the centre, which 
gave forth a pleasant musical sound. On 
either side of the fountain were beds of 



ramercg ftarfc. 



brilliant vari-colored tulips. There were 
comfortable benches along the gravel walks, 
and the shade-trees were already leaved in a 
luxuriant green. He quickly made up his 
mind, so charming was the prison, that he 
was barred out, rather than that the two 
people, walking at a distance within, were 
prisoners in the little park. He divined that 
the absence of gateways was but a sign of 
aristocratic exclusiveness. It was too early 
for nurse-maids and children, too early for 
the usual policeman. The proinenaders had 
the place entirely to themselves. They ap 
proached, around a turn in the gravel-path, 
the spot where he stood looking through the 
bars. It appeared that a very handsome 
young girl was taking her constitutional on 
the arm of a robust, stout little old gentle 
man in gray side-whiskers. They walked 
rapidly, the young girl talking and talking 
in a high key, very much out of breath, and 
with cheeks very much flushed. 

De Ford was on his way down town, but he 
was willing to be late this mild May morn 
ing, if it cost him a " dock" in his salary. 
Within the green enclosure of the pretty 
park was the girl the one girl he loved. 
He would wait and speak to them. As they 



GramercE 



came nearer he could overhear the girl speak 
in breathless tones : 

"Papa papa! not so fast," she was say 
ing; "I cannot tell you all I want to say. 
He he is a connection of the Archibalds, 
you know, and he 

But they raced past and he could learn no 
more of what Florence Heath was saying 
and saying about him, evidently; she Flor 
ence Heath who had told him so demurely, 
last evening, at Mrs. Canfield s dancing- 
class, that she could only be a sister to him. 
For a moment he meditated how delight 
ful it would be, if it were possible ! a brave 
rescue of the charming Florence, and, espe 
cially of her obdurate papa from their im 
prisonment. He longed to put that stolid, 
stout little man under a sense of obligation. 
He longed to recommend himself in some 
way to show himself worthy of the girl on 
the little man s arm ; for he felt assured that 
it was her father, whose hard heart and sus 
picious business nature had been the funda 
mental cause of Florence s forbidding him to 
" hope." 

He had met the old gentleman at dancing- 
classes, at balls, at parties; Florence had 
introduced him when he came, dragon-like, 



ramercg parfe. 



at ridiculously early hours to carry her off, 
protesting and pouting, home. He admitted, 
however, that her Puritan father was able to 
preserve thereby in his daughter s face a cer 
tain sweet grace of health, and a dewy fresh 
ness of eye, which seemed to be denied to the 
late stayers. If there was anything that 
could mitigate his unbearable conduct, it 
was his quiet, intense love of this same daugh 
ter which De Ford, very laudably, wished 
to share with him. 

In the mean time, Florence and her papa 
had spurted around the little park*, again 
with marvellous celerity. He fancied they 
would not see him, as he stood gazing between 
the iron pickets, in dumb admiration. How 
sweet she looked! Her large hat with its 
bright flowers, her dress of pale gray, her 
indescribable air of fashion foretelling all 
the glories of summer. She was excited, 
brilliant, spirituette, and dear to him as her 
father was repugnant. 

" Confound him!" muttered De Ford, " he 
doesn t begin to know how lovely she is!" 

And they were still talking of him. It 
was difficult for him to hide himself; he 
secretly longed to sink into the earth, and 
disappear ; but on they came. 



" Keally, papa, you do him injustice; he is 
very well connected the Albany De Fords, 
you know," cried Florence, her chin in the 
air. But the rest was silence; Florence s 
quick eye caught his own; he was conscious 
of a bow, which he returned, and of a pretty 
blush, which gave him enormous secret 
pleasure. He had been but a few months in 
New York, but he fancied he had been in the 
city long enough to select the most charm 
ing girl in it or in the world to whom to 
pay his devotions. He had met and danced 
three uimes with her at one of the Patri 
archs balls, and since that night had found 
it quite impossible to think of any one else. 
He had calmly bankrupted his finances in 
sending her "Jacks." He was prepared to 
do any foolish thing. As he saw her and 
her father approach the park-gate, his heart 
gave a leap of pleasure; something, he knew 
not what, told him it was to be his lucky 
day. 

The old gentleman fumbled in one pocket 
after another his park-key was gone! Flor 
ence had not seen it. Florence knew noth 
ing about it. The old gentleman was getting 
angry. It was De Ford s opportunity. 

However, De Ford may have scrimped and 



saved in other ways, he dressed very well in 
deed ; having his clothes over from London 
twice a year, by a mysterious tailor s man, 
who appeared at his office down town, and 
delivered him his "goods" with a truly 
romantic smuggler manner. His scarf was 
dark and in very good tone, and his hat was 
ever fresh and new. On this sunny May 
morning, he was particularly well-groomed; 
he had the consciousness, as he stood there 
which Emerson tells ns some women have 
that well-fitting clothes afford, at times, a 
greater consolation than religion. 

" I must have dropped the key somewhere," 
cried papa, very much annoyed; "I ll go 
back and look along the path for it." 

He turned to go as he spoke, but he was 
by no means intending to leave Florence en 
tete-a-tete with that good-looking young 
scapegrace, De Ford of all men and so he 
added : 

" You go one way, my dear, and I ll go 
the other; we shall soon find it." 

" Can I be of any assistance?" said De 
Ford, lifting his hat, and pulling nervously 
at his long mustache; "I beg of you, let 
me go and get you a key somewhere 

He was aware that his offer was somewhat 



fcarfc. 



vague, but it was the best he could make 
under the circumstances. 

"Oh, don t trouble yourself, Mr.De Ford; 
it is it must be in the park some 
where " 

This was vague, too. But Florence, in 
spite of the painful dismissal of the evening 
before, had given De Ford a very charming 
smile, lie fancied it was a smile of encour 
agement. It was, indeed, his belief that 
every woman s "no" meant "yes." He 
walked slowly along outside the fence, as she 
walked within it, searching for the lost key, 
and keeping pace with her. They soon, by 
this ingenious but simple device, were the 
entire distance of the park away from papa. 

"Florence! Forgive me but I can t 
believe that what you said last night on the 
stairs was final." De Ford spoke in a low 
voice, and Florence gave an agitated ex 
clamation. 

" Papa will hear you!" she cried; then she 
sighed and looked down. 

As papa was at the moment at the other 
end of the square, he took her words figura 
tively, as he hoped she intended. 

" Then he shall hear me at once ! I shall 
go to him now!" 



Gramercg iparfc. 



"Mr. De Ford wait!" she said sedately. 

" Come closer the fence, pray do and 
and let me swear that you are all the world 
to me ; I did not take for granted what you 
said last night 

Their eyes met, and all the love in the 
whole world then seemed to be in them. 

" You know that I cannot live without you 
that I have been wandering about all night 
in my mind, I mean hoping expecting 
to catch sight of you somehow, somewhere. 
Do, Florence, at least come up to the fence!" 

" I dare not; papa is watching." 

Yet Florence, in spite of the little sign at 
her feet, "Keep off the Grass," and in spite 
of all the civil city authorities, with a quick 
glance papa-ward, and a fluttering of the 
heart, advanced close very close to the 
high iron fence, and took his extended hand. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make 
Nor iron bars a cage !" 

he quoted laughingly. So it s papa, is it, 
who is so cruel so unkind? Ah, my dar 
ling, I knew it couldn t be you!" 

He had drawn her gloved hand through 
the bars, and kissed it. There was no one 
to be seen not a soul in the street. 



(Sramercg 



She tried to withdraw her hand, but he 
would not let it go. 

" And if you do not love me what do I 
care what becomes of me? I I will join the 
army the Salvation Army!" 

"Jack!" It was the first time she had 
spoken his name, and he said rapturously : 

" Ah ! Then may I not hope?" 

" Oh, it s only papa, it isn t I. He 
doesn t quite trust you there! I ve said it. 
Oh, he s looking he s coming!" Her high 
color was charming just then. She hurried 
into the gravel path quickly, and began 
looking for the key. Papa, with what they 
felt to be a determined, angry stride, was 
bearing down upon them at a brisk pace. 
Florence stooped suddenly. 

" Here it is!" she cried; " I ve found it!" 

"Quick! give it to me; I have a plan," 
De Ford called eagerly. " Quick, before he 
comes!" 

" I I can t; he will see me." 

"Throw it!" 

She gave one of those tentative, awkward 
girl throws, so amusing to a man, so exas 
perating to a woman, and the key fell a few 
feet within the fence. 

" Go on pretending to search for it, dear," 



10 &lt;3ramercg 



he whispered hoarsely; "I will get it with 
my stick." 

Florence did as she was told. Just as the 
old gentleman came up, a few moments later, 
the key was safe in Jack s waistcoat pocket, 
and he was soberly giving directions to Flor 
ence where he believed the little article 
would be most likely to be found in the 
path. 

"Very awkward!" exclaimed Mr. Heath, 
full of vexation and heat. " Here it is 
nearly ten o clock! I must be going down 
town. Of course, there isn t a policeman 
in sight. I wonder where I dropped it. It 
is abominably provoking. I don t know 
what to do how to get out!" 

" Can t I be of some assistance now?" Do 
Ford lifted his hat again with exaggerated 
civility. 

" Oh er really locked in prisoners, 
you see!" laughed papa dismally, and trying 
his best to pass it off as a joke. 

" I am fortunately acquainted with several 
people in the neighborhood who have keys, 
and, while I go in search of one, permit me 
to offer you a cigar, sir." De Ford boldly 
reached his hand through the fence. " And 
here s the morning paper, sir ; I was just read- 



&lt;3ramercB parfe. 



ing an interesting article about the public 
necessity of raising the tariff still higher on 
Russian leather ; let me advise you to take a 
seat on a bench, and wait for me." 

"Ah, yes, thanks very much. I m sure 
you re very kind, indeed." 

The old gentleman looked a trifle sur 
prised, but took the paper and cigar, and 
sauntered off to a bench. 

" I shan t be long," said De Ford. lie 
hurried away, really for the purpose of inter 
cepting the park policeman, who was com 
ing up the street with an apple and orange 
in either hand, and a gate-key, of course, in 
his pocket. 

" Here s a dollar for you, officer, if you 
will kindly walk once more around the 
block." 

"What s up?" 

"Xothing; only as a favor to me that s 
all;" and lie crammed the crisp note into the 
policeman s hand. Florence, whose quick 
eyes discovered the stratagem, kept her 
father in conversation. 

" Oh ! he admires you so much, papa he s 
heard so much about you! And you don t 
know how hard-working he is; but he says 
he hasn t your capacity and he s a connec- 



12 OramercB frarfc. 

tion of the Archibalds, you know, and he 
says it is true, papa that when his grand 
father dies " 

" Florence, I ve told you a dozen times he 
hasn t a dollar in the world no, nor a cent 
but I must say he can be very civil. Most 
young men nowadays don t know how to 
be polite to their elders. Ahem ! Yes, very 
interesting article on Russia-leather." And 
the old gentleman adjusted his spectacles on 
his nose and fell to reading. 

" Mr. De Ford is so interested in leather," 
said Florence in a small half-whisper. Her 
father paid no attention to her ; he had lit 
the cigar (a far better one than he ever 
afforded), and was feeling very comfortable, 
indeed, in the cool, delicious morning air of 
the park, amid the tulips. 

" He says he is very lonely in New York ; 
he has no place to go to no house he can 
call his home;" and she sighed. 

"Let him join a club," said the old gen 
tleman gruffly. 

" Oh, yes, but he says they drink wine in 
clubs;" and Florence Heath looked down to 
hide her guilty smile. 

"Hum! hum! so they do," muttered her 
father; "let him join a church, then." 



ramercp jparfe. 13 

" But he says there are so many 
churches 

" Many humbugs ! Every one knows Dr. 
Surplice is the only real orthodox preacher 
in New York. Let him go there." 

"He does go there now he s so devout; 
but he says his mother died when he was but 
a year old, and his religious instruction has 
been wofully neglected. Papa, shall I ask 
him to come home with us?" She looked 
away. Where was Jack? 

" Certainly not ! The idea ! This time 
of day!" 

" But it s so kind of him to get the key 
for us 

" Yes, but he s slow enough getting it, in 
all conscience!" 

Although her back was turned, she knew 
Jack had appeared again. 

"Oh, here he is at last!" she cried, and 
rose briskly. Do Ford, who had been hiding 
around the corner, now hastened forward on 
u run. (He was a clever amateur actor, much 
admired as Romeo in the burlesque at 
Harvard, in the Pudding, in 84.) He pre 
sented the outward aspect of a man who has 
nearly run a desperate race for twenty blocks. 

"Oh, no trouble at all," he cried breath- 
2 



14 (Sramercg parfc. 



lessly; "very glad to be of service;" and he 
swung the iron gate open with a flourish, 
and Florence and her papa passed out into 
the street. Florence gave him a sweet little 
glance. "Ah, del! I am free once more," 
she laughed; and De Ford replied, under the 
very nose of papa : 

" You know you never said a wickeder fib 
in your life!" 

Papa looked mystified. The badinage of 
young people, nowadays! 

" But isn t there such a thing in law as 
duress?" she laughed; "you had me under 
lock and key!" 

Papa looked more mystified than ever; he 
sailed away with Florence on his arm, then 
turned : 

"Oh! De Ford, come around some night 
and smoke a cigar with me; do you play 
bezique?" 

And Jack went down town with a light 
heart. It was his lucky day. 




II. 



FORTNIGHT later and John 
Shermerhorn De Ford was sol 
emnly, truly, unalterably, and 
for all time engaged. He bor 
rowed some money of a friend, and bought an 
expensive ring at Sparcus ; a pretty thing in 
diamonds and rubies. They were engaged; 
but papa, who was a stern old Puritan New 
Englander, made conditions. He was obdu 
rate ; he was relentless ; he drew up a long 
paper, which De Ford gladly signed. Poor 
fool ! he was happy enough to sign a prom 
issory note! The conditions were many. 
The engagement was not to be announced ; 
there was always to be a " discreet" third 
person in the room. He might call Monday, 
and Thursdays from 8 to 10 P.M. Florence 
could only wear the ring in private. Papa 
reserved the right to break the affair sharp 
off at any time. Papa reserved a great many 
other things; they must not call each other 
by their first names ; if they went to parties 
15 



16 (Sramercp parfc. 

they could only dunce twice together, etc., 
etc. 

They each signed the formal " terms " of 
the engagement, and secretly swore to be 
true, even if papa should put the world be 
tween them. Ah, there never were before 
or since such lovers as these ! 

Mrs. Heath was a mild, sweet-natured lit 
tle woman, of highest family connections, 
wh was completely under her husband s 
and every one else s thumb. She signified 
her " discreetness" by regularly going to sleep 
on Monday and Thursday evenings, when 
De Ford, with his usual bunch of jack-roses, 
called upon his fiancee in rigid accordance 
with the "terms." It may be said that, at 
those times, some of papa s rules were un 
doubtedly infringed ; but, when he happened 
in, Jack was always reading aloud, in a sol 
emn, dreary tone of voice, that dullest of 
all dull tales, " Tlilliard s History of the 
United States." Papa began to believe that 
he had made a most desirable choice of a 
son-in-law. 

Meanwhile De Ford worked very hard 
down-town, in the large banking and brok 
ers office he was in, on Wall Street. lie 
added columns of uninteresting figures, ran 



(Bramercg ipmrfc. 17 

with messages over to the Stock Exchange, 
and made himself generally useful in talking 
to customers over the "tape." No one can 
ever know, or begin to know, of the life 
dramas of these myriad pale, hard-worked, 
well-dressed, sad young men on Wall Street. 
De Ford had gone through his four years 
at Harvard sublimely indifferent to what 
his circumstances were to be afterward. He 
had belonged to the Banjo Club, the Varsity 
Nine, the "Dicky," and the Pudding, and 
that was enough. Just a year after he had 
left college, and was in Paris he had been 
at the opera with some friends, one night 
he received a telegram from his father to 
return home at once. When he arrived at 
New York, he found that ho would be 
obliged to work for a living, that his 
father s fortune had melted away. Shortly 
after, his father died, overwhelmed by his 
disastrous failure. Poor Jack, as unfit for 
battling with fate and earning his own 
living as the pleasant, easy, social life of a 
great university could make him, came down 
to Wall Street very blue and miserable to 
begin work. As time went on, however, he 
got over the feeling. His naturally light 
and buoyant nature asserted itself. He went 



18 6ramerc ftarfc. 

a little into society. He met the pretty 
Miss Heath there were many contretemps; 
and now, as we have seen, he was " condi 
tionally" engaged. 

He had a bright, quick mind, and he 
" took" very well in Branscomb, Beach, & 
Catherly s. The patrons of the firm con 
ceived a fancy for " young De Ford." " He 
had most admirable manners." They said: 
" Poor chap he had been brought up like 
a prince!" They rather petted him, took 
him out to expensive lunches at Del s and 
Saverin s, where he amused them with his 
capital stories; they gave him fine cigars, 
asked his advice about " C. K., and K. C.," 
and other mysterious western railways, and 
urged him to set up an office for himself. 
He felt himself constantly touching millions, 
and in debt to his landlady at his boarding- 
house. It was a most peculiar life he began 
to lead: a life of unsubstantial brilliancy, 
dining with some rich friends at Delmonico s, 
sending the charming Florence a box of 
roses, and, next day, walking up and down 
town to save car-fare, or bargaining with 
his landlady to let his bill run over a week 
longer. His mind was full of gorgeous vis 
ions of enormous wealth, and his happiest 



10 



moments with Florence were spent in plan 
ning a rational outlay of their expected ten 
thousand a year. 

But at last, after a time, his prospects act 
ually began to change for the better. Brans- 
comb died went off in a sudden apoplexy 
one day, on the floor of the Stock Exchange, 
and there was a change in the firm. Every 
one in the office moved up a peg; the firm 
became, "Beach, Catherly, & De Ford." 
In honor of the event, Florence was allowed 
to give a dinner and theatre-party, at which 
their engagement was announced. Catherly, 
a fat, good-natured millionaire, swore that 
his junior should be married at once, and 
made it a personal matter to see papa and 
talk him over. Mr. Heath was obstinate, 
however. 

"Wait, "he said, cautiously, "you Wall 
Street men have many ups and clowns; it 
isn t a legitimate business; it isn t leather; 
it isn t even coffee or flour or sugar. It s bet 
ting and gambling that s what it is; if you 
bet right, you win, that s all. My future 
son-in-law is a gentleman I don t say he 
isn t; but he and Florry are both young; 
they can wait a year or two. See how kind 
I am! I have removed several conditions; 



frarfc. 



De Ford can now call on either of the fol 
lowing nights, to wit (and he took out a 
small memorandum-book) : in addition to 
Mondays and Thursdays, he may now call 
Wednesdays and Fridays; he may also come 
to Sunday-night tea; he may see Florry on 
Mondays, alone a great concession, Mr. 
Catherly for it means, Mr. Catherly, as 
you and I know, for we are both married 
men, and went through, I dare say, the ex 
periences of courtship it means, I fear, a 
respectful kiss." 

" Why, of course it does!" roared jolly old 
Catherly. " Why shouldn t they? A hand 
some young chap, and the sweetest girl in 
the world! By heaven, sir, she s exquisite 
she s a beauty!" 

" But it s all very well but 

"I don t want to hear of any buts and 
concessions ; I want you to let them get mar 
ried; we shall see that De Ford will have 
five thousand a year; he s worth it; he s a 
valuable man; he makes friends easily; he 
brings them into the office 

"I wish he was in leather," grumbled the 
crusty old merchant thoughtfully. " It is 
so much steadier." 

" Well, he isn t; he s going to be a wealthy 



ramercs fcarfe. 21 



banker; he s going to be a man you ll be 
proud to call your son-in-law!" And Cath- 
erly, with the utmost good-nature, talked at 
the old gentleman so cleverly and so well 
that he got him to say they should be mar 
ried a year from that day " conditionally." 




Ill, 

YEAR from that day rolled quick 
ly round. It was again one of 
those bright, sunny mornings in 
May. The tulips were out once 
more in Gramercy Park. It was now two 
years since De Ford had so gallantly rescued 
his lovely fiancee and her father from their 
dire imprisonment. The pretty little en 
closure, with its high iron fence the bright 
est spot in all the great dull Xew York 
seemed to gleam with unusual lustre. It 
was high noon; there were sounds of wed 
ding-bells in the air, coming high and clear 
from the city spires of old St. George s; 
there was happiness and jollity in all the 
faces one saw; the park policeman had 
donned new white gloves, and wore a white 
favor; there was an awning stretching out 
to the curb from the wide, old-fashioned 
brown-stone house of Mr. Heath. There 
were crowds of children and nurses, and 
street-gamins; and, best of all, there was poor 
22 



0ramerc fcarfc. 23 

old Mrs. Jones, whom Florence had time to 
be so kind to, and old Mrs. Murphy from her 
" district," too, all standing there in the sun 
shine, looking for the bride to return from 
church. 

Presently the carriages. The children 
gave a shout. The first drove up to the 
curb. 

"Be careful, Jack my train!" and out 
stepped De Ford, hale and handsome; and 
see how tenderly he helped his young wife 
alight! Then oh, dreadful fate of these 
two young people out stepped papa! For 
some reason papa looked unhappy and dis 
turbed. He hurried up after the bride and 
groom, and then the carriages, one after the 
other, deposited the guests for the wedding- 
breakfast. 

There was Catherly, resplendent in his 
English morning-suit, and Beach, the head 
of the firm, with a gorgeous button-hole bou 
quet; there were loads of pretty girls, for 
Florence was extremely popular; crowds of 
Jack s Harvard classmates, for he was fond 
of his friends; and the music from out the- 
open windows made the park policeman 
guess as they d be dancin ." 

Bid papa looked on askance I He was now 



24 ramercg fcarfc. 



a father-in-law; true, but did his preroga 
tives cease from this day? Must he, for 
sooth, now hand over his sceptre? Mind 
you, it was his only daughter his only child 
whom he had just given away " condition 
ally ; " and he loved her as the apple of his 
eye! Yes, " conditionally!" He had under 
stood that Jack would come, after a reasonable 
wedding-journey, and live with them on 
Gramercy Park with his wife; it was under 
stood, but not agreed, for no words had 
passed. 

But now Jack his son-in-law, had put 
his foot down. It came like a thunder-bolt! 
Mr. and Mrs. De Ford intended to live in 
an apartment paid for out of Jack s own 
income; they had actually picked it out 
up-town, on the West side! 

Papa realized that this was simply flat re 
bellion, and something must needs be done 
about it at once. There was the great broad 
house on Gramercy Park, with its bay-win 
dows, its comfortable old-fashioned belong 
ings, which would simply be empty without 
Florence and her friends. Why, he would 
never have thought of giving his consent had 
the idea entered his head that his daughter 
his only daughter meditated such unfilial 



&lt;3ramerc parfe. 25 



conduct. Go away from the family roof-tree, 
and live alone with her husband? Prepos 
terous ridiculous! He would put his foot 
down, too. 

After the elaborate wedding-breakfast 
there came a crowded reception; and when 
the bride, in her dainty gray travelling-dress 
and little hat trimmed with flowers, went 
out the door on Jack s arm the old shoes 
and showers of rice, and " God bless you s," 
and hurrahs, were enough to set the whole 
park agog. "Ah, God bliss her!" cried old 
Mrs. Murphy. " The prettiest bride the sun 
ever shone on so she is ! God bliss her, f er 
she s twict as good as she s purty so she 
is!" 




IV. 



were not obliged to actually 
engage their apartment until the 
fall, and they made up their 
minds to spend the summer at 
some quiet little place in close proximity to 
10 o clock at Wall Street. They would be 
gin their married life, not in conformity 
with the general rule for the summer months 
which prevailed among most of their friends, 
i. &lt;?., a limited divorce they would never be 
separated ; and, indeed, they all spent a very 
pleasant summer together in a cottage at 
Sea Bright, and papa was as mild and reason 
able as possible ; for, so far, all went as papa 
wished. 

But, unfortunately, late September came, 
and September fogs, and with them the ne 
cessity of coming back to town. 

His father-in-law was a man of resources, 
and, for that matter, so was De Ford. Each 
had quietly gone about his plans. Papa se 
cretly redecorated the interior of the Gram- 
26 



ff&gt;arfc. 27 



ercy Park house in most sumptuous style. 
The third floor was hung in satin and tapes 
try and embossed in stamped leather from 
his own tanneries. Florry s sitting-room 
was made a charming, fascinating chamber, 
all in ivory white, with an exquisite old fau- 
teuil in imitation of one in an old French 
chateau, and in yellow tiles from Holland. 
The windows were changed into little dia- 
mond-paned casements, and looked out on 
the greenery of the pretty park as from some 
lordly castle upon its demesne. There were 
rugs from Samarcand and furniture from 
Gerter s. He gave his decorator carte blanche. 
Poor man, he was not the first to be cap 
tured by a decorator ! The whole house was 
changed into the most artistic and delightful 
interior. He spent a fortune on his oak 
dining-room, with tall gothic chairs from 
old Provence. Jack, on the other hand, 
made secret visits to the twelve-storied apart 
ment, the" Senegambia," on upper Broadway 
and Central Park. He met Florence, as it 
were, by stealth, and they had the most 
delightful days in town together in hot 
August (when nobody but poor lonely club 
and business men remained in New York), 
purchasing cheap furniture on Fourteenth 



28 &lt;3ramercg iparfc. 



Street. In a Aveek or two the little flat 
was furnished from parlor to kitchen ; 
brand new beds, brand new chairs, new 
carpets, new brooms, new frying-pans. 
What fun it was to cheapen flat-irons, 
and get ice picks at a reduction too, be 
cause they took a dozen of them ! If papa 
went up to town by boat they went by rail, 
and vice versa. He never found them out. 
They were too busy to discover what he was 
about. They bought a most remarkable din 
ner-set, and decorated their parlor with the 
pictures Jack had in his rooms at Harvard ; 
and when everything Avas done and all was 
ready, they said : " Of course when papa sees 
how lovely it is, he will yield." 

And papa, at Gramercy Park, surveying 
his (decorator s) superb exhibition of art and 
taste, said: 

" Oh, of course there will be no trouble 
about it when they see what I have done for 
them." 

And so the eventful day came at last when 
they moved back to town. 




V. 



IS father-in-law was even willing to 
make great concessions. He had 
pondered the matter long, and he 
was even prepared, de minimis 
non curat, to yield the head of the table. 
They came up to town by the Long Branch 
boat that last day of their vacation and, 
as they sat out on deck, and the goddess of 
Libert} r hove in sight on the port bow, he 
said, after a little cough, and laying down 
his morning paper: 

" Jack, I feel I am getting old 
" Oh, not at all, sir not at all," said De 
Ford quickly. 

" Y-a-as I m getting old. I ve seen my 
best days, Jack ; I want you to sit at the head 

of the table 

Florence was breathless with agitation; 
was Jack going to be "firm" noio, or what? 
Would there be a scene? 

" I will not permit it sir," said Jack; then 
he added, " There shall be two tables yours 
and mine." 

3 29 



30 (Sramercg 



" Oh, no we shall live together ; but you 
must carve." 

De Ford s face grew pale with decision: 

" Father we I -- " But Florence, sit 
ting behind her papa, gave a gesture, and 
he paused. 

""Women are so indirect!" he thought 
vexedly. She got him away by himself. 

" Oh, not yet, Jack dear wait let us go 
home at first then we can break it to them 
gently after a day or tAvo Jack -- She 
hesitated a moment ; then began again," Dear, 
home means so much to them ! It is every 
thing. Somehow, Jack, even the Senegam- 
bia doesn t seem like home. There are peo 
ple playing a piano overhead, and there is a 
lady who sings just beneath. It s very pretty 
and nice but it s like being in some public 
building --- " 

" But isn t it home where 7 am?" 

"Yes but -- " 

" But what? How are homes ever made? 
A man and wife should be pioneers should 
begin life alone, together on their own plan 
tation." 

" But the Senegambia isn t even a planta 
tion it seems like a great hotel." 

Then she added, after a little pause: 



(BramercE fcarfc. 31 

"It isn t quite home!" 

And his wife pleaded so sweetly, that De 
Ford merely muttered, "Oh, hang it!" and 
then smiled. 

Now the old lady, though a very quiet and 
oft-times sleepy old lady, was the dearest old 
lady in the world and no fool. De Ford 
led Florence away to the bow of the boat, to 
talk the affair over, and mamma leaned over 
her husband. 

"Mr. Heath James!" 

" Well, Matilda, what is it?" 

Mrs. Heath looked very wise. " I know 
their secret." 

Papa began to have delightful visions. 
He turned a cheerful lobster red in con 
sequence. 

" No not that 

" Well, what is it?" 

" They have taken a flat and they ve fur 
nished it!" 

Papa rose to his feet, astounded. 

"No, I ll not believe it of them! That 
would be treason !" He could think of no 
other more appropriate term. 

" They have, and I know where it is in 
the Senegambia. I found a bill of their fur 
niture!" 



32 &lt;3ramerc parfc. 

"Well well well!" said the old gentle 
man unsteadily; " can it be possible? Florry 
leave her home? I ll not believe it and 
/ // not have it!" He struck his fist heavily 
on the handrail of the steamer. 

" James, you must ! I was born in the old 
house iu Second Avenue, and you took me 
away, James yes, you did." 

" But there were three of you Florry is 
our only one. I ve set my heart on her liv 
ing in the old house on the Park; and when 
the children come, Matilda, and we grow 
old, we can sit and watch them at play from 
our window." 

He fairly trembled with disappointment; 
his wife was all excitement too. To these 
two old people, their daughter was ever a 
young child. 

" I have a plan," said mamma; " they shall 
live in the old house, and you shall see." 
But as Jack returned with Florence just 
then, her voice sank into a whisper which 
papa alone could hear. 




VI. 



;E FORD agreed with his wife to 
postpone actually going to the 
Senegamhia until the next day. 
He went to his office from the 
boat, and as the market was exceedingly 
active it generally is in September, when 
the brokers are only too anxious to be in the 
country the smart office-boy had some reason 
for hoisting above his desk in the outer office 
the placard, 

"THIS is OUR BUSY DAY!" 
De Ford was kept very late over his books, 
and did not arrive at the old house in Gram- 
ercy Park until six o clock. He took the 
elevated train at Hanover Square, and came 
up town, crushed and jammed amid a band 
of Italian brigands and German peasants, and 
holding on for dear life to the strap. When 
he arrived at Twenty-third Street, he was in 
no very enviable frame of mind. He wished 
he had decided the matter in the morning, 
and had it over with. He wished, too, that 
8 33 



34 (Sramercg f&gt;arfc. 

Florry had more decision of character. Of 
course it was best for them to live independ 
ently in their own apartment, with their 
own things around them. De Ford had a 
great fund of honest pride, and he did not 
want to have it said on Wall Street that he 
was living, as the saying is, " on the old 
man." During the summer he had seen 
more of his father-in-law than ever before; 
and, to tell the truth, he admitted to him 
self that the old gentleman was at heart a 
good fellow. It began to dawn on the clever 
young man that the intensest love of their 
daughter animated almost everything that 
the old couple said and did. Jack and his 
father-in-law often sat out late, while the 
moon danced over the sea, and every one else 
had gone in, smoking and talking of Florry. 
They both loved the sweet young girl-wife, 
and they could talk over what she said and 
did without a jealous pang. She was blithe, 
gay, impulsive, charming. Papa told of what 
she said as a two-year-old; of her running 
away when only three, escaping out of the 
open front-door, carelessly left ajar, and how 
after hours of the most terrible anxiety, she 
was brought back to the old house, chatter 
ing and laughing in the arms of a Park 



ramercg parfe. 35 

policeman. De Ford thought of this as he 
mounted the steps and groped for the usual 
door-bell. He was rather surprised to note 
the new and elaborate oaken door, and the 
half-windows of rich stained glass. He 
pressed the button and the servant opened 
the door, and ushered him into a most gor 
geous hallway. It certainly was not his 
father-in-law s. 

" I I must have made a mistake in the 
number; is this is this Mr. Heath s?" He 
believed he had gone up the wrong high 
stoop. " No, this is Mr. De Ford s, sir," and 
the man, dressed in subdued livery, bowed re 
spectfully. He did not catch the name dis 
tinctly, and turned to go. Just then he 
heard ringing laughter, and his wife came 
running out of the reception room; she 
threw herself into his arms tumultuously and 
kissed him. 

" It is all a surprise and papa has done 
it all for us from garret to cellar it has 
all been done by Gerter and now" (she be 
came suddenly serious) " we, must leave it 
all 1 

"Yes, "he said. She looked down and 
her face fell. 

" And Jack Jack ! you should see the 



36 &lt;3ramercB 



dearest little sitting-room for me upstairs 
and everything!" 

It only made De Ford the more deter 
mined. The very lavishness of the display 
of wealth on either hand affected him dis 
agreeably. Ha hadn t paid for it. He 
hadn t any right to live in it. His father s 
failure and his struggle for independence 
had eaten its way into his character, and 
made him rather hard and insistent upon 
certain things. He resolved to take his wife 
away at once; he wished she did not have 
a cent in the world. 

" Come, Florry, let us go now imme 
diately, before we have to have a scene ; I am 
tired I don t feel like a row just now. 
Let s go off to the Senegambia , and leave 
a note for them. Come, dear, let us slip 
away; it s all very kind, no doubt, to do all 
this for us; and, I must say, the old house 
looks like a palace ; but we must not yield 
we ve talked the matter over again and again, 
and every time come to the same conclusion ; 
we ve bought our furniture; everything is 
awaiting us -- " 

" But Jack, dear, the china is all Sevres," 
she whimpered. 

" I don t care if it s gold." 



(Bramercg fl&gt;arfc. 37 

" But the dinner is waiting papa and 
mamma are both out. Wait till they come 
in, dear, won t you? Don t let us be rude." 
Florence was fluttering about like some wild 
wood bird caught in his hand, and held 
against her will. 

" No, darling. " He gave her a determined 
look, and she wilted beneath it and grew 
docile. But presently she fell to crying on 
his shoulder. 

" Jack Jack," she said, " they love me so !" 

Poor De Ford was touched ; there was an 
other aspect of the case which, indeed, was 
rather pathetic. The old house, with its 
modern luxury and grandeur, would be 
empty and dull enough now without its 
brightest jewel. The exquisite young bride 
was more fitted to Gramercy Park than to 
the modest flat in the Senegambia. Had 
he, after all, the right to take the jewel out 
of its setting? But he put these ideas far 
from him as "sentimental." 

" Come, Florry, let us hasten think what 
jolly fun it will be (by Jove! what a mag 
nificent portiere!) Get your hat, dearest; 
and remember, if we make a stand now it 
will make us feel so much more er more 
well, noble ; we shall be independent." 



38 GramercE fcarfc. 



" But I don t want to be independent of 
mamma." 

However, in a moment more Florence, 
tearful, yet appreciating the highly credit 
able instinct of her husband, clung to his 
arm, and they were quickly on their way to 
their own little home. She felt that what 
they were doing was splendidly heroic. 

"After all," whispered Jack, "it s only 
giving up the unearned increment! 

"What s that, Jack?" she asked inno 
cently; but he only kissed her, and they 
closed the fine glass door tragically behind 
them. 




VII. 

was heroic, and, too, it was such 
fun! It was an escapade, an 
elopement. They stopped and 
had a little dinner at a famous 
restaurant to emphasize it, before going on 
to the Senegambia. Jack was so jolly! 
Florence dried her tears in very dry cham 
pagne, and drowned her filial repentance in 
Jack s proud sense of honor. If she felt 
guilty it was just enough to add a spice 
and tinge the affair with interest. Thoughts 
of poor papa and mamma coming home and 
expecting to find them admiring the new 
interior, and only pleading to be allowed to 
remain there always did occasionally flit 
across her mind; she knew it was very, very 
unkind. But, then, going up in the hansom 
about the southwest corner of Fortieth Street, 
on the avenue, just past the dull lamp-post, 
Jack took her in his arms and kissed her 
and she she forgot it! 

The Senegambia rose like an enormous 
39 



40 Oramercg 



tower full twelve stories into the air, front 
ing on upper Broadway. The entrance was 
very ornate and elegant, with a variety of 
stained glass, and polished granite. The 
hallway was brilliant with electric lights. 
The door stood open, and the elevator-boy 
leaned wearily against the side of the car as 
they entered and requested to be lifted to 
the tenth story. 

" They s two folks gone up there already," 
said the boy drowsily. 

"Why, who can they be?" queried Flor 
ence. 

" Old lady and old gent. Tween you n 
me, mum, they seemed to want to keep it on 
the dead quiet, too." 

" Why, it can t be papa?" she glanced at 
her husband. 

The elevator rose to the floor, and they got 
out. They softly let themselves in their flat. 
Here and there in the cosey little parlor were 
pieces of new furniture done up in gunny 
cloth. They heard voices in the dining- 
room, and tiptoed out along the narrow hall 
way, and hid behind the door, peeping in. 
There was papa, his coat off, bustling about, 
and making a salad; and there was mamma, 
her skirt pinned up to her waist, running in 



park. 41 



and out of the snug little kitchen, laughing 
and going on like a young girl. She was 
broiling a steak herself and making coffee. 
They seemed as happy as two children, and 
what? Papa actually caught hold of mamma, 
and gave her a hearty kiss on her ruddy 
cheek. They were a picture of a modern 
Darby and Joan. 

" Oh, it is so like old times!" said mamma, 
thinking of her girlhood when Mr. Heath 
and she first set up housekeeping. " And if 
they do not want us, James, then why should 
we keep the great old house, now so grand and 
fine, for us old folk?" 

"Old folk! I like that!" cried papa, "I 
feel as young as as -- " 

Papa could think of no adequate simile, 
but finally admitted that it was a daisy, or 
perhaps a sunflower of some kind. 

" And when they find that we have stolen 
a march on them, and that we mean to give 
them the old house on Gramercy Park for 
them alone and that we won t live there, 
and we won t go there often except once in 
a while James, I must I must see Florry 
once a week then how glad they ll be!" 

"Yes, how glad they ll be," echoed papa, 
rather dolefully. " The old house is too big 



42 (Bramercg 



for us entirely. We don t need so much 
room; they do they must entertain. I want 
Jack, as he grows older, to be the biggest 
magnate on Wall Street, and he will be in 
time. Oh, how pleased they will be when 
they see all I ve done for them, and how I ve 
fixed up the old place and all ; and, Matilda, 
Jack s right quite right. It s better to 
live alone we like it, don t we? only only! 
But there! now your steak is burning!" 

Mamma gave a cry and ran out into the 
kitchen, and then soon reappeared, laughing, 
with the steak and colfee, and Darby and 
Joan sat down to their dinner. They talked 
of the old days, so long ago in Second Ave 
nue; they talked of Florence of her sweet 
babyhood and childhood ; they spoke of their 
son who died that Jack had taken his place. 
They seemed to think only of their children 
their two children. 

Florence stood leaning against the door 
way ; she was perfectly motionless, only the 
tears rolled down one by one. Jack had 
hold of her soft, warm hand. 

"Come, dear," he whispered, fearing she 
was about to speak ; " leave them alone, bless 
them ! They are so happy and papa has 



won! 



(BramercE fl&gt;arft, 43 

She gave him a quick, bright glance. 

" Oh, there is but one thing now to be 
done," he whispered and nodded. 

On their way out he gave the elevator-boy 
a dollar bill not to speak of their going 
there. 

" It s all right, is it?" asked the boy; " he 
said as he was your father, so I let him up. 
Well, I m queered if them tenth-floor-east- 
flat folks ain t a mighty bad lot counter 
feiters, sure!" he muttered, and afterward 
confided the same to the engineer, who oc 
casionally emerged from the subterranean 
cellars of the Senegambia, as far as his 
head and shoulders went, and passed the 
time of day. 

On their way back to Gramercy Park they 
stopped at a telegraph-office, and sent a mes 
senger-boy back to the Senegambia with 
one of Jack s visiting-cards, on which he 
had scribbled a few words, which gave the 
old people endless amusement and delight. 
It obviated all further explanations, and 
resulted in four very happy people sitting 
down to a late supper that night in the old 
home, at which Jack, under protest, did the 
honors at the head of the table. 



44 ramercB parfc. 



Here is the card: 



Jlfr. &* J\frs. John Schermerhorn De Ford, 
At Home, 

Every Day in the Week 

FOREVER ! No. Gramercy Park. 




VIII. 

[HE THIRD winter came and went 
in Gramercy Park a winter of 
quiet domestic happiness, of 
gentle family-life. 
May came again, and the crocuses, tulips 
and the budding trees, and brought another 
little baby-life into the old house, but left 
the sweet young mother for days at death s 
door. 

One night Florence lay very low. She 
scarcely seemed to breathe. Jack De Ford 
paced the long room below, his hands behind 
him, his face drawn and haggard. All night 
he had restlessly moved about from room to 
room, catching now and then a brief sweet 
glance from her tired eyes; meeting her 
mother in the hallway, and saying nothing, 
going out in the dull midnight hours on the 
high stoop and gazing at the dreary lamps 
down the street and across the park for com 
fort; hearing as he stood there the gentle 
soughing of the wind in the trees within the 
4 45 



46 Gramercg 



high iron fence; fancying spirits were whis 
pering Florence s fate to him in words audi 
ble but incomprehensible. All the currents 
of his being seemed for the time stagnant 
and motionless. There had been long days 
of suspense, when his nature seemed to grow 
hard and cold. He had had his surfeit of 
sorrow, which is as fatal as a surfeit of joy. 
Long afterward he shuddered at such despair 
ing emotion, and would have none of it. lie 
had learned to avoid sorrow to escape it. 

It was five o clock in the morning now, 
and the city s roar had not yet begun. The 
light came in slowly through the gilded 
blinds, and the heavy dark-green velvet cur 
tains did their best to shut it out. What 
were night and day to him? He wandered 
about the great house, occasionally passing on 
the stair his elderly father-in-law, who was 
more bowed down and depressed than he, Avith 
his youth and health, could ever be. He was 
glad the doctors persisted in their cold pro 
fessionalism ; that the nurses were indiffer 
ent, but keenly alert. Science was battling 
against the destroyer Death, and Science 
must needs be well armed. The days and 
months of winter had been so happy in the old 
house in Gramercy Park! Life had moved 



Gramercg iparfc. 47 

along in the smoothest orbit. How easy it 
was, now, to make money in the street! 
Luck favored every turn he made. His 
keen, quick brain had detected and turned 
to his firm s advantage a great " deal" among 
the magnates in grain. Luck had been with 
him in everything so far. Was it to turn 
now, and punish him more deeply, more 
severely than if it had let him alone and 
given him no happiness whatever? 

Then, along with his thoughts of self, 
came the crushing, despairing remorse of his 
own self being the cause of Florence s death. 
No amount of argument could turn his mind 
from this morbid self-accusation. " I am 
her murderer," he thought in agony. " Her 
love for me has been her death." The feeble 
red, wailing little mite of humanity which 
they had let him hold a moment on a dainty 
lace-trimmed pillow, and told him was his 
daughter, he regarded with absolute aver 
sion; the child was he himself a murderer. 
" Good God ! Almighty God ! do not let her 
die!" he cried, sobbing and throwing himself 
on a sofa. " She has always been so gentle, 
so sweet! She has been so good, God! 
so tender to all who came within the radi 
ance of her beauty. Must she die? Is she 



48 (BramercE parfc, 

too pure, too exquisite?" Then he sat up 
a moment. He knew there was some extra 
excitement in the sick-room upstairs. A 
cab had rattled up. A learned physician 
one of the profoundest of medical men in 
America had been summoned from his bed. 
Tie saw him make his way upstairs a strong- 
featured, silent man accompanied by the 
two regular doctors. There was a long inter 
val. He looked up suddenly. It was lighter, 
but the gas was still burning in the daylight, 
and his mother-in-law s face looked almost 
yellow as she came to the door timidly. lie 
sat up and looked at her inquiringly. " She 
would say," he thought rapidly before she 
could say anything at all, " She is dead," or 
" There is no hope," or " She said Good-by, 
Jack, " or she would merely sit down and 
cry. But Mrs. Heath said or did none of 
these things. She said, " She wishes to see 
you." De Ford rose quickly, and passed out, 
patting her shoulder, and saying nothing. 
He had a way of patting her, which she had 
grown to expect and like. It meant very 
much more to her just then than words. 

A sense of his own unworthiness over 
burdened him again as he climbed the stairs 
heavily. He felt he had too much dross. 



(Bramerct? f&gt;arfc. 49 



He was of the earth earthy. His soul said 
to his inner soul, "Am I worthy?" and 
received a distant and hesitating nega 
tive. He was entering into the presence 
of a pure young saint, who already had 
lived in the other world who had been 
for days hardly confined in that white, pure, 
exquisitely moulded shell her body. The 
doctors were talking together in the smaller 
ante-room, below a gas-burner turned on full 
as he entered. One was laughing. It jarred 
on his feelings and he nervously muttered 
an oath below his breath ; then waited again 
a moment, turned, went into another room 
and knelt down alone, praying God, whatever 
happened whatever happened, to change 
him. It was only about himself that he felt 
concern just then. His own shortcomings, 
not deep and desperate then, poor Jack, but 
felt overwhelmingly. He prayed like a little 
child, begging God, with streaming eyes, to 
change him for the better and concretely to 
change him so that he would never swear 
again. Poor Jack! 

It is only human nature to cry out aloud 

at such times to this Higher Force, Power, 

God, or what you will. It is nature s cry, 

felt, instinctive, and based upon our ever- 

4 



r &gt;o &lt;3ramerc 



lasting need. Then he arose from his knees, 
calmer, but still timid and fearful. It had 
all taken but two or three moments, yet 
Florence said softly as he bent over her : 

" I thought you were never coming, Jack 
and, Jack, I have so much to say, dear. It 
worries me about those poor people of mine, 
Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Murphy and their chil 
dren. When I go I can t bear to leave them 
to their fate. Dear, you won t let them 
suffer?" 

"Not as long as I live, and if you go I 
want to go too, dear, very soon." 

He was entirely sincere. 

"Jack, the baby she needs you. A girl 
needs her father. I don t want you to think 
of following me. It s perfectly absurd, it s 
ridiculous. I shall be provoked. Now, I 
won t have it! There!" 

He felt her beauty as she lay there white 
on her white pillows, her dark hair caught 
by a diamond pin in a dainty Frenchy little 
cap of expensive lace. She had passed the 
point of regretting not a difficult point with 
those many women whose lives are self-abne 
gating from childhood in all their daily, in 
finitely small details. Her own life what 
was it? How cheaply she valued it! All the 



&lt;Bramerc parft. 51 

fuller, the entire life, the absolute certainty 
of a hereafter, was in her every glance, in 
her smile, so sweet that he too, as his hand 
ran lightly over her hair, and the tears, 
wrenched from his heart, suffused his eyes, 
dreamed that he heard music and felt him 
self raised up in a divine ecstasy. A man 
rarely reaches these divine heights, my mas 
ters. He felt silenced, humbled, quiet be 
fore this pure spirit, which he saw radiant 
with holy light, yet which he heard talking 
impulsively, lightly, as she always talked. 
It was not incongruous to him. He felt the 
spirit beneath her words. He listened and 
nodded, holding her hand as she spoke pressed 
against her breast beneath the cool linen 
and light eider-down bedclothes. He could 
not control his mind s wandering into the 
past and future. He did not sob now; the 
days of wild regret and tears were over. He 
sat and listened at her bedside, nodding and 
saying, " Yes, yes, "while she quickly ran on, 
"as though she were really alive," he kept 
saying to himself, "as though she were really 
alive!" 

" And, Jack, about the funeral. I wish 
you would not let papa put in the notice, 
No flowers. I think it s horrid. I want 



52 



every one to send a flower every one I care 
for, and I care for so many, Jack! , As I lie 
here I keep counting them np, faces so 
many faces I am perfectly astonished to 
see how many people I like I love. They 
come to me of their own accord, Jack, dear, 
and they say Good-by. Well, I want every 
one to send a few flowers. Just a few. I 
don t want any floral tributes. " She smiled. 
" But you know, Jack, it s April now and 
violets are plenty. Last fall mamma and I 
went to such a sweet, dear funeral of a little 
girl on Fifty-eighth Street Mrs. Bidding s, 
you know. It was very simple, but so tender. 
And do do not look too sad, too solemn 

Jack, it s nothing Jack I I feel so 

faint -- " 

"She s going!" he cried aghast, and the 
nurses called in the doctors hurriedly. 

With blanched faces papa and mamma en 
tered together. Poor mamma, hysterical 
now and sobbing out, " Florry, my baby, my 
little Florry!" and kneeling at her bedside. 
It was the baby Florence of whom she was 
thinking the Florence of long ago. 

His wife lay there dead-white, her eyes 
closed, motionless, a smile on her lips, her 
curly dark hair escaping from the dainty lit- 



i-amercg park. 53 

tie French cap and flowing out on the pil 
low. The doctors pressed to her bedside, 
the consulting physician, a rather stern, 
tall, older man, standing a little back. 
There was a flash of an hypodermic syringe. 
A moment and she opened her eyes slowly. 
" Ah let me go " She sighed so wearily. 
The scientist a man profounder than he 
looked was never made turned to the poor 
broken old couple. "Two years ago," he 
said in a whisper, " I lost my daughter by 
not remaining in the room at a crisis like 
this. I learned a lesson. Calm yourselves. 
I shall not leave the room to-day until I am 
able to assure you that she will live. I am 
satisfied what I say is true." The great man 
then coolly took off his coat as if to wrestle 
with death more easily. Somehow this act 
of his sent Jack out of the room and down 
stairs with a revulsion of exuberant joy. 
The morning was sunny, and the tulips and 
crocuses were nodding and calling to him 
from the little park. He ordered let out the 
two brown-haired setters in the basement, and 
went out for a romp in the delicious fresh 
ness of the morning. Ah, the pretty park 
never looked so beautiful as then ! She would 
live! She would live ! 




IX. 

LOWLY, by degrees, she came back 
to earth. The little baby clung 
to her and drew her down from 
the regions, 

"Where the human spirit seeks for Peace." 

Death hid away, then slunk away wholly 
overcome. Life had come baby-life, jolly 
and smiling. Now with the spring came 
soft, balmy little airs from the tree-tops of 
the park, and every twittering, noisy Eng 
lish sparrow seemed to have a word for the 
sweet girl-wife of love and good cheer and 
good hope. 

The warm, sunny day came when Florence 
could sit up and look out upon the world. I 
don t suppose her father or her mother 
thought at all about her beauty. If she had 
been a plain, homely-faced daughter (but 
with such a tender soul how could she have 
been anything but beautiful ?), the two jeal 
ous, doting old people would have acted just 
54 



&lt;5ramerc iparfc. 55 

the same. Papa said very little, but he did 
the queerest things during her illness. He 
slipped out one day and went himself to see 
about Mrs. Murphy and her children, of 
whom " Florry" was always speaking. The 
old gentleman did not leave them till he had 
spoiled the children with candy and left a 
twenty-dollar bill in Mrs. Murphy s hands. 

We all go down once or twice in our lives 
into the Valley of the Shadow, stay there for 
a period, then come out again smiling, with 
somehow a new callousness born of a period 
of too great mental suffering. All three had 
a reaction now into a liking for pure rough 
nonsense and amusement. Night after night 
papa, mamma, and Jack sought out comic 
minstrel-shows, coarse, farce-like plays; the 
theatres did not furnish much else anything 
pour amuser. The circus came in the mid 
dle of May, and no children enjoyed it more 
than these three. Night after night, after 
kissing Florence good-by and seeing her 
safe in bed with the baby within arm s reach, 
they drove to the circus and saw the fright 
ful leaps of Monsieur Frascati and the bril 
liant bareback riding of Mile. Trois-Etoiles, 
with an amused complacency. 

It came to be the middle of June. Flop- 



56 ramercE fmrfc. 



ence rode out now, but riding on the rough 
pavements tired her. She came to prefer 
rolling out in her wheel-chair beneath the 
trees in the little park; so every morning 
now, before the sun got very hot, a little 
procession started from the old house. First 
came the little princess in her carriage with 
attendant waiting- women; then the queen, 
her mamma, in her throne-chair and foot 
men; then Jack, the king, who seemed to 
take a trifle more notice now of the little 
red princess with dark eyes, who said noth 
ing, but whose smiles were worth untold 
efforts in the way of baby-talk and shaking 
rattles. Later grandpa, the dethroned mon 
arch, would come out into the park with his 
cigar and morning paper. It was curious 
how everything these people did was tinged 
with a hidden, ill-concealed hilarity. With 
the heart merry, what trifles please ! Little 
sweet glances of the eye from Florence to 
Jack. Little laughing jokes on his enor 
mous parental gravity ! Grandpapa s heavy 
solemn jests, too, went very well now. He 
liked to appear over-brusque, over-rude, to 
say the roughest and toughest things of the 
Democratic party to say them brutally, 
out of his very jollity and content. As for 



&lt;3ramercg iparft, 57 

the city he was going to buy a house in 
Dublin there were some English there! He 
prophesied catastrophe to the country with a 
smiling of the lip; ruin to everybody high 
and low, big and little they then realized 
how happy he was! He was not sure but 
that the prophet Jeremiah or Isaiah, Mother 
Shipton, or somebody was right, and the end 
of the world was at hand. " I have never 
known your father in such high spirits," 
said his good wife at each appalling an 
nouncement. 

And it was papa, with Jack s aid, who 
played the remarkable practical joke on both 
the good mother and daughter and the little 
grand-daughter too, though she was so quick 
and smart that she caught on to it at the 
outset, but promised not to tell, at least until 
she could talk. They hired Sundown, the 
artist, to surreptitiously " do" the mother and 
child in a madonna-like portrait without 
their knowing it. Sundown entered into 
the spirit of the thing. He pretended to 
be making a " study" of the park for a large 
painting, and so Florence unconsciously 
posed every morning for him there. One 
morning he had two very successful hours 
of Florence innocently holding little Dor- 



58 (Sramercg f&gt;arfc. 

othy nestled in her arms right before him. 
He caught a perfect likeness of the madonna 
and child, for his soul responded to hers, and 
the rare beauty of her eyes he felt and painted 
as only a true artist can. " Why, pray, Mr. 
Sundown, do you keep looking at us so?" 
With Florence it was always " we" and " us" 
now. 

"Er you happen to be sitting just before 
a tree I am sketching." And Sundown, 
nothing abashed, brought forward the land 
scape and pointed out the identical tree. 
Florence was quite satisfied. She liked Sun 
down; he had frank, fine eyes; she enjoyed 
his conversation about Italy. He was a lit 
tle bit " free" about Paris, where he had 
studied two years under the great Gerome. 
He told many stories of Meissouier, Bougue- 
reau, of Dupre, Millet, and others. 

" Such lives those wretched French artists 
live!" she sighed. " But about Italy what 
he said was so reverent, so full of feel 
ing!" 

" I feel that we must buy Mr. Sundown s 
pretty picture of the park," said Florence 
one day. " He has entertained us delight 
fully. I usually have my chair wheeled near 
where he is painting. The only thing I 



ramercg parfc. 59 

don t believe he means to be rude but lie 
keeps staring so 

"Let him stare," said Jack laiighing, in 
which odd sentiment grandpapa precipitately 
concurred. " He s a gentleman, and one of 
the best of the younger artists of the day. 
He likes to look at beautiful things, doesn t 
he?" 

" He is very fond of babies; I suppose it s 
Dorothy he looks at," said grandpapa, with 
a guilty conscience. 

"Let him stare," added Jack; "I shall 
invite him to the house. I like him. I m 
going to buy some of his pictures, two Ve 
netian studies good work, they say. Oh, let 
him stare!" 

So Sundown stared on and Florence gently 
forgave him, and believed it was the way with 
all artists to use their eyes. Sundown used 
his to a good purpose. Florence walked on 
her husband s arm into the drawing-room 
one evening; and there, lit up by a dozen 
candles, in a gorgeous Florentine frame as 
if above an altar and making an altar-piece 
she first saw the result of Sundown s Avork. 
Curious odd folk these wives of ours! 
Florence stamped her little foot; she was 
quite provoked. 



60 (Bramercg 



"If I had died," she said, much agitated, 
" such a thing might have done. It is too 
high too divine. I I am only your little 
Florry, Jack." 

Jack said nothing, but put his arm around 
the sweet girl at his side. His thoughts 
flew back to that dreadful morning when all 
that was dear in life seemed slipping from 
his grasp. The artist had caught the divine, 
unselfish, unworldly " motherhood" in Flor 
ence s lovely eyes. The portrait meant a 
great deal to him. It was Florence s higher 
self the self she kept back out of the way, 
afraid to expose not the self she felt she 
could always day by day live up to. 

"It is to me everything," he muttered. 
" It helps me so," and he was silent. 

" Shall I ever dare to frivol with that 
thing in the house?" she whispered. "Shall 
I ever dare to laugh, to romp about? Jack, 
I don t want to be very good; I don t want 
to be better than you!" 

He laughed and kissed her. 

" I mean I you are you don t want me 
to be like that?" 

He blew out the candles one by one. When 
they were all out and they stood in the semi- 
darkness holding each other s hands, he whis- 



iparfc. 61 



pered : " I want always to remember that you 
are my good angel ; lots of times I forget. I 
am cross. I am tired. I am worried with 
business. I am forgetful of you. Long be 
fore those dreadful days when Dorothy came, 
and after, I had not thought of you to love 
you as I did suddenly that morning we 
thought you were gone. Then then it was 
different. A man s wife should sink into 
him for all time and simply be him his 
higher soul. High, high up, I enshrine you, 
dear." 

"Jack I I just won t!" 

She threw herself, happy, into his arms. 
It was a moment of sublime unselfish love on 
both sides a moment of supreme exaltation 
of spirit, when the earthly dross has, as it 
seemed, wholly fallen away. She kissed her 
husband, and said that the portrait should 
after all be a pattern for her to live up to. 
"For us both and Dorothy," she said. 

Ah, the world the world! Would that 
these two could have gone together into Ely 
sium then ! The world became cruel to them 
later on, and the portrait was destined to 
look down on much sorrow and many tears. 




X. 



,11, Jack, I can t go away and 
leave you alone all summer." 
" It is best." 

" But it has never happened 
before." 

"No you have Dorothy now to love." 
She gazed at him reproachfully. 
"And I have the portrait," he laughed. 
Suddenly she sprang upon him, seizing 
him almost fiercely by the arm. Loving 
women occasionally do these things. 

" Do you love me now, Jack?" she panted. 

He burst out laughing. " Seriously," he 

added soothingly, " Dorothy must get up into 

the mountains at once. Here it is almost 

July. What are we thinking of. Ourselves 

our love? We must think of Dorothy." 

" Well, then, I shall go to Lawrence or 

Seabright or where it will be near you 

" No, the doctors say the mountains. 
They are right, dear. We must be content 
to be separated for the child s sake. I have 
62 



ramercg fcarfc. 63 

taken a cottage in Franconia. Everything 
is arranged. I can come up Sundays 

" Tell me, Jack, is this the way all mar 
ried people in New York who have children 
have to do? Oh, I hate our horrid climate, 
which compels us to do this!" 

" They call it the Annual Divorce at the 
club," he laughed. 

" It s wrong, it s wicked !" she kept saying, 
feeling instinctively that she could not bear 
to allow anything to come in and prevent her 
sharing her husband s daily life. 

But after a day or so of unusual heat, 
Florence yielded to persuasion, and July was 
spent in the mountains in keenest fresh air, 
the best of food, the best of Alderney milk, 
the best of care for mother and child. Flor 
ence, during the long summer days while 
Jack was in the city, to amuse herself, took 
up French again. She read Gasparin, Pas 
cal, Du Guerin. She spent days lying on 
the grass under the trees with Dorothy near 
by. The blue skies and white dreamy clouds 
floated above her. She had little social 
gayety. She was at peace. 

Their cottage, not far from the hotel, sur 
mounted a knoll from which was a distant 
view of Bethlehem and the Franconia Moun- 



64 Gramercg parfc. 

tains. The summer wind came to them from 
across a wide stretch of valley, laden with 
the sweet clover perfumes and the musky 
smell of hay. The world the whole earth 
seemed far distant, far below. Unconsciously 
Florence grew in appearance in certain ways 
more and more like her portrait. Her 
mother remarked it. 

" When Jack comes up next Sunday 

" Three whole days off, mamma 

" He will say that Mr. Sundown has not 
overdone the " dreamy" look, Florry. You 
are too lonely here. You are very pensive." 
She meant, poor soul, it was becoming stupid 
for her there with so little social life. " You 
are so content; but remember, Florry, you 
are still in the world, my child. There were 
Mr. and Mrs. Chutney at the hotel last week. 
We should have called." 

" I have been selfish. \Ye will have a tea- 
party." 

Mrs. Heath could not conceal her pleasure. 
She took the baby up and " clucked" and 
"guggled" to it. 

" I did not want to be the one to suggest 
it," she said, " but I think it would be a good 
idea an excellent idea. There are the 
Eichmouds, the Lockerts, the Bradleys, at 



Oramercg fcarfc. 65 

the hotel; and I m very fond of Mrs. Brad 
ley, who has a new crochet-stitch." 

Florence gave a little sigh. " Dorothy is 
so all in all to me, that I am forgetful," she 
said ; " I live in the new world of babyland. 
Of course we must invite them; as for men, 
Mrs. Chutney said that Mr. Sundown was 
expected." 

" No one expects men to be away from 
business, but Mr. Sundown shall be made 
to do double duty. Is he really coming 
up to the mountains? That will be so 
nice! I am fond of Mr. Sundown. We 
must make him talk about Italy. We must 
shut him off about Paris. But there must 
be some more men? Mamma, pray go and 
run your eye over the hotel register to-day. 
Certainly we must have a tea, and we can 
have it Saturday night, when Jack and papa 
are here." 

" Friday would be better. Your father 
does not enjoy teas. Friday it must be, Flor 
ence. Do you think after riding in the cars 
all day they will enjoy talking to ladies?" 

Florence pondered a moment. "Mr. Sun 
down will be our only man, then?" she said. 

" He is enough. He is very talkative. 
He will be a belle. But Mrs. Locker is quite 



66 &lt;3ramerc park. 

manlike too. She has such a deep voice! 
Besides, there is old Colonel Bradley." 

" We could telegraph that we intended to 
have the tea, and if they could tear them 
selves away from business they could come 
up." 

" Oh, yes, we can do that; but they won t 
come. Your father never likes to leave be 
fore Saturday, and Jack is very much like 
your father." 

Mrs. Heath fanned herself gently. She 
had paid Jack the highest compliment she 
was capable of. Florence had not noticed 
it. Suddenly the elder sprang up. " I for 
got that we fare at the mercy of our ser 
vants up here," she said; "I must go and 
ask them." 

Florence gazed after her mother as she 
busily trotted off into the house. Some one 
entered the gate. It was Sundown, looking 
bronzed and very handsome in his artistic 
velveteens and knickerbockers. He bowed, 
praised the baby in a few commonplaces, 
and at once entered into conversation abciit 
Italy. It was an Italian sky, an Italian haze, 
an Italian sunset last night. He had ob 
served, too, a number of Italian gentlemen 
at work upon the railroad that morning. 



(Sramercg park. 67 

"Ah, and how is Minima?" he asked, lean 
ing over Dorothy s basket-carriage, while 
Florence laughed. " And how is Madonna?" 
he added. 

" That is the bone I have to pick with 
you, Mr. Sundown; you have actually can 
onized me." 

" I I am no ecumenical council rolled 
into one," he laughed. 

" But the portrait how can I ever live up 
io it?" She made an expressive grimace. 

He looked clown on her upturned face a 
moment and said nothing. " Is it too 
good?" he asked at length. "Can it be? 
Ah, well, it is you, Mrs. De Ford, as you 
seem to me." Then he added to himself: 
" If you were not so pure and high I should 
dare love you. I should taint you by daring 
to love you ; as it is, I may only worship 
with the throng!" 

" You must come to our tea Friday, Mr. 
Sundown," said she. "It is a very formal 
affair, you must understand, and you must 
expect to make yourself very entertaining. 
You and Colonel Bradley will be the only 
men." 

"Colonel Bradley!" 

" He is available, and I admire his white 



68 ramercg parfe. 

hair and white mnstachios; therefore, he 
shall come to our tea." 

" Ah, yes, certainly. But I am rather 
timid. You will let me devote myself to 
you and Dorothy?" 

" We will not do anything of the sort. We 
shall expect him to make himself especially 
agreeable to our guests shan t we, Dorothy, 
dear?" 

Dorothy gave an amiable little coo as her 
mother kissed her fat cheeks. 

" And he mustn t say that teas disagree 
with him, as papa does." 

" Oh, I am perfectly willing to be teased 
by teas," laughed Sundown, lazily throwing 
himself on the close-cut grass. " Now isn t 
that a perfect Venetian blue sky across the 
valley beyond the mountains? I remember 
once in a gondola Miss Franscioli was very 
handsome, but I despise a woman who flirts 
don t you, Mrs. De Ford? I mean who 
openly, unguardedly flirts; uses her eyes, 
smiles don t you, Mrs. De Ford?" 

"How unkind of you to ask; let my por 
trait speak," she replied sedately. 

" Miss Franscioli had been a Mrs. Frans 
cioli, of New Orleans (a rich banker) ; then 
a Mrs. Miles, of Chicago." 



(SramercE 



" How odd! I don t understand." 
" The divorce courts had turned her back 
into a Miss a Miss is as good as a mile, you 
know. She is as young and as handsome, 
and flirtatious as ever; and in Venice, two 
years ago her party was at my hotel on the 
Grand Canal she and I struck up, or 
rather, renewed our acquaintance made in 
Washington a few years ago. She was not 
then the facinating divorcee she is now. She 
was rather quiet and fond of her child, who 
since died suddenly in Paris." 
" Oh, she had a child, and she 
" Oh, well, she was too handsome and too 
fond of the world, don t you know, to leave 
it permanently. She has mourned a year 
after the little girl s death; but a friend told 
me she was gayer than ever in Washington 
last season, and that illustrates my idea." 

" What dreadful idea is that, Mr. Sun 
down?" 

Florence was always interested in what the 
young artist had to say. She leaned forward 
now, and glanced at him with an amused 
smile. He stared at her as frankly as ever 
he had done in Gramercy Park. It was a 
sudden influx of the world Mr. Sundown had 
brought with him the great world she had 



70 Gramercs iparfe. 

so lostsightof amid the hills and clover-fields 
of the high Hampshire uplands with her 
little Dorothy. 

"My idea is," he said, "that people are 
sometimes made harder by sorrows are more 
stolid by going through severe crises. One 
is always reading the opposite of this in the 
novels. But trials are not good for some 
men. They do not come out from them 
stronger, but harder." 

" Well, about this Miss or Mrs. Franscioli?" 

" Her child s death I think it has not 
done her any good." 

" She must be a wretch." 

" On the contrary, I wish she could meet 
you, you would say she was very charming. 
She is, in fact, a gorgeous woman. She has 
dark reddish hair, such as Kubens loved to 
paint ; eyes literally flashing. Indeed, Mrs. 
De Ford, they seemed, as I remember, to 
throw out a certain light." 

Mrs. Heath came out on the lawn under 
the apple trees just then, and Sundown arose 
and saluted her politely. 

"You are coming, of course, Friday?" she 
asked, as she smiled upon him with her calm, 
patient eyes. He murmured an assent, and 
a half-hour later sauntered leisurely away 



0ramerc fftarh. 71 



down the hill, thinking how lovely the young 
mother looked in her pretty white morning 
robe against the clover green. His artist eye 
did not altogether relish the Queen Anne 
cottage with the washing hanging out, in 
dicative of Mary Ann in the rear; but he for 
gave much in the presence of the woman he 
had begun to worship as from afar. 




XL 



JJIJNDOWX carried the picture of 
the thick-leaved, shady apple tree 
in the grassy meadow, the sweet 
young wife propped up on pil 
lows beneath it, the baby lying in her lap, the 
amiable kindly grandmother standing behind 
her for many a day. It remained after 
many other pictures had come to his mental 
vision in after days. There was a " round 
ness" in all of Florence s attitudes which 
caught his artist eye. Her dark hair filled 
in the delicious little hollow of her neck in 
a most charming way. The white dress be 
came her; the pillows of damask silk, the 
high-colored rugs on the grass, the tree 
above, "thick-leaved, ambrosial," her little 
feet showing their dainty-slippered tips. She 
would have sat to a better portrait in the 
mountains, he thought, than the one which 
hung in the old house in Gramercy Park. 
She was still ill, then; she was paler; she 
looked more like some happy saint. It was 
a good piece of work, the portrait, however. 



&lt;3ramercB parfc. 73 



His artist friends spoke in highest praise of 
it. All, how he would have loved to paint 
her now a woman, not a saint, with heart 
and feeling and human life speaking in her 
face ! 

Pretending he wished to sketch a bit of 
mountain from just exactly that spot, he 
came to spend his days there, talking and 
chatting to the mother and daughter, four 
days until Friday night came, and with it 
their eventful tea. 

Only very foolish people may connect Fri 
day, hangman s day, the 13th of the month, 
the night of their tea, with any superstitious 
feeling. The night of the day before papa 
had received a telegram at the house in Gra- 
mercy Park, announcing their little func 
tion, and begging him to come up a day 
ahead. He had hastily answered it : " Can 
not leave biz. Very sorry." 

When Jack came home later from business 
he read their telegram and said, " I believe 
I ll go up and surprise them." 

" Go, by all means," said his father-in-law; 
" I can t get away. It s my busy time, you 
know, in leather. Buy a lot of knick-knacks 
at Dourbley sand take up; they ll like them 
for their tea." 



74 ramercg parft. 

" I can go just as well as not. The market 
is very dull," yawned De Ford. "But I 
know this; if I do go something is sure 
to happen in the street, and I shall be 
needed, as Mr. Beach and Mr. Catherly 
are away now. However," and he thought 
of his wife and of Dorothy under the shady 
apple trees on the sloping lawn, " I guess I ll 
chance it." 

The day was hot when he started. There 
was a great deal of unnecessary delay over a 
freight train which had been thrown off the 
track at Springfield. His train was an hour 
and a half late. The dinner he got at a rail 
way station was anything but satisfactory. 
When he arrived at last at Franconia, he 
jumped into a hack and drove home rapidly 
in the sweet early evening, regretting now 
the fact of the tea and strangers and the need 
of being polite, when he hungered and 
thirsted only to see his wife and his child. 
There was a moon above the horizon, and 
near it a star, Venus. The moon hung like 
a lamp above the mountains in the pinkish 
light left from the sunset. The mountains 
were a deep rich violet. High up above him, 
across an upland field, he saw his cottage 
lights twinkling, and thought he heard 



(SramercE park. 75 

music. He only heard the krick-krick of 
the locusts, the chirp of the crickets, the 
whistle of the locomotive of his fast receding 
train; but the whole scene filled him with 
unutterable longing to clasp his wife in his 
arms gave him a lover s fear that she might 
be ill 

" A sense of dread, lest she be dead. " 

He hastily paid the driver his fare, jumped 
out, and struck out on a run cross-lots to 
his house. 

" That ere man s in a hurry, I guess," 
said Mr. Higgins, the driver, looking vaguely 
after him ; " most o them husbands like to 
hang around the tavern a leetle while afore 
goin home, but he don t. Wai, Mr. De 
Ford, he s jest married, an he ain t ben up 
for two weeks. Wai, that caounts f er it," 
and he slowly turned his old horse around. 

At the side of the cottage was a garden 
and small summer-house, covered with vines 
and clematis and honeysuckle; leading out 
to it was a path through the garden, lined 
with currant-bushes. 

De Ford was obliged to clamber up a sharp 
ascent over rocks and to dodge around 
boulders, but he knew the path and he had 



76 



no serious difficulty in picking it out. lie 
cared not, then, for bruised shins! He 
neared the house, saw people on the wide 
veranda, heard the jingly piano played while 
a lady sang. There were two people standing 
in the summer-house, a woman and a tall 
man. He crept close enough to see it was 
his wife. She was standing near the 
man in the pale moonlight, and they were 
laughing together and looking at the beau 
tiful moon and the star. 

De Ford felt a sadden strange revulsion of 
feeling. He paused and stood still, where 
just before he felt like shouting a joyous 
view-hallo; he hid behind some bushes, then 
made a circuit and came up in front of the 
cottage on the gravel path. The first one he 
saw was his mother-in-law, but for some rea 
son he would not kiss her. Inside the draw 
ing-room came out to him the " infernal 
buzz" of conversation; he refused to enter. 
When Florence, radiant with love and happy 
laughter, came hurrying in, he just barely 
touched her forehead with his lips. 

"Mr. Sundown is here, Jack," she said; 
" isn t it nice?" 

He turned away and frowned. He felt 
that he was angry because she was not watch- 



Gramercx? iparfe. 



ing and waiting for Mm, and thinking of 
him alone, just as he felt her portrait in the 
old city house kept its eyes always for him 
alone whenever he came home. " Some 
day," he said, "I ll punish her for this! 
Ah, how tanned she is; she is not quite the 
same she is changed!" 

Florence stood looking at him in surprise. 
Absence had but made her heart grow fonder. 




XII. 

Y the time that every one was 
gone Jack recovered himself. It 
seemed to the girl s discerning 
instinct that he was fiercer, wilder 
in his demonstrativeness than ever before. 
She felt that something had happened. His 
kisses burned like fire. He frightened her. 
" I know, I know," she kept saying. "I 
hate surprises, and they always end badly. 
I was not here when you came in. I was 
not the first one you saw. It was too bad, 
Jack; but really, under the circum 
stances " 

" Oh, don t apologize," he laughed. " Does 
Mr. Sundown stare as much as ever? If 
he does, I shall tell him to his face that now 
the portrait is done it is a decided imperti 
nence. Pray, how long has he been here? 
These artists, they can tolly-diddle all sum 
mer over the rocks and the hills and never a 
question asked!" 

Then he saw his wife looked pained, and he 
stopped abruptly. 

78 



&lt;3ramercg iparfc. 79 

" I hope Mr. Heath is well, and will be 
up to-morrow," ventured his mother-in-law, 
placidly. 

" Yes, he will he- 
Jack seemed to be thinking of something. 
He was absent-minded, distrait. But Flor 
ence was too happy now to notice it. She 
went at him now after the manner of wives 
whom fate compels to be absent from hus 
band and city shops through the long vacation 
of summer. " Did you bring up the lilac 
silk I ordered?" 

"Yes." 

" Did you see about the brown holland 
covers for the furniture?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you get baby s little silk shirts?" 

"Yes." 

" Did you remember to bring the medicine 
from Dr. Chesney?" 

" Yes. " 

" Did you see to the moths in the top bureau 
drawers in the rear chamber? Oh, Jack!" 

" No I I I forgot that. " 

Florence got up and walked out of the 
room, saying: "Jack, dear, how could you be 
so forgetful? All baby s winter undercloth 
ing will be eaten up." 



so ramercg parfe. 

He heard his wife go into the little parlor 
and run over a few provoked little bars on 
the piano. He took out a cigar, lit it, and 
went out into the calm moonlit night. For 
the first time in many days he said below his 
breath, "Damn!" and then he burst out 
laughing. 




XIII. 

UT the next day brought the rich 
peace and calm of the mountains 
into his heart. He lay, his head 
in Florence s lap, his hair fondly 
patted by her white hand, while she read 
him a charming story, just then out, of 
Howells. The child, Dorothy, doubled her 
little fists into her puckery little mouth near 
at hand, while her French nou-nou in all the 
glorious nurse habiliments of Paris the 
long cap-ribbons and the long purple cloak 
sat near by on the grass with a cow-like 
placidity, gazing at the distant hills. Flor 
ence was fortunate in being able" to nurse 
the child herself. The French girl, a huge 
creature with the jolliest laugh in the world, 
had now very little to do; but her smile, for 
provoking contentment, was worth her wage. 
Presently Florence put down her book and 
gazed calmly off at the mountains. 

"Mrs. Locker was saying last night," she 
said, " that this annual separation for the 
81 



82 (Bramercg 



summer, of husbands and wives, was such a 
blessing. " 

"Humph, I don t know," said Jack 
drowsily. 

" I think it makes us appreciate each other 
all the more, Jack don t you think?" 

Jack sat up. The subject interested 
him. 

He scratched his head. Then he laid 
down, vehemently, this formula: 

" A man and wife ought never to be separated 
a day." 

Florence looked at him wonder ingly. 
"Necessity," she murmured, "Dorothy." 

" Every day, every hour, we grow, change, 
we look at things differently. We have fads 
and fancies. Temporary separation is called 
a short death; so it is apt to be of con 
stancy." 

He was thinking of the picture Sundown 
and she made together in the vine-clad arbor. 
The picture was framed in his mind to stay, 
as it seemed. Poor Jack ! 

"Constancy!" she cried half-surprised, 
and applying his words personally. " Must I 
be always in New York, Jack, to keep your 
love for me up to the scratch? Oh, Jack!" 

" Men are apt to be even less tempted than 



fcarh. 83 



their wives, I think, because they are busy." 
He said this nonchalantly, in an easy tone. 

"As if I were not busy!" laughed Florence, 
showing all her white, pretty teeth. " From 
morning to night I am just as busy with 
baby as I can be, and I sing lullabies about 
Father will come to thee soon, don t I, 
baby? And I I Jack, I think you are 
just as cruel as you can be!" 

There was a suspicion of tears in her 
pretty eyes. 

He could not bring himself then to 
mention Sundown s name. It is needless 
to say it did not enter the mind of the 
beautiful girl-wife at his side. He got up, 
yawned, and stretched himself, as a man 
will do when, he comes out from the city 
and breathes anew the sweet perfume of 
the fields, ripening now for the harvest. He 
caught up the baby and tossed it, and said a 
great quantity of nonsense to it. He told it 
a great deal about the loneliness of New 
York, the dulness of life in the "metrop 
olis," and the nobility of man toiling to 
bedizen his wife and child with precious 
stones through the torrid, infernal heats of 
a cloudless August. 

Florence caught the little belaced and be- 



84 (Sramercg fi&gt;arft. 

flounced bit of humanity from him, and kiss 
ing it again and again, and told it of the 
delights of club-life, the theatres, the sea 
bathing for a city man, and solemoly called its 
attention to the " poky " stupidity of life on 
a hill, where one was only to be stared at by 
an occasional cow. 

The use of the words " stared at" was un 
fortunate. It brought an unpleasant train of 
thought to De Ford s quick, supersensitive 
mind. He turned away, and without a word 
strolled down and out the road toward the 
hotel. 

"Jack, where are you going?" called out 
Florence after him. 

"I m going in search of that cow," he 
called back without smiling. 

She turned slowly and went back into the 
house. Our Othello walked with his hands 
thrust into his pockets, his brows knit, say 
ing and muttering to himself: "What a 
stupid fool I am to question the sincerity 
and love of that dearest girl on earth ! Can t 
I see her talking with another man without 
being an ass?" 

His anti-conscience for men have two 
voices spoke up and said: "Ah, but you 
would have liked it better if there had not 



Oramercg frarfe. 85 

been that other man. Of course you don t 
doubt her heart. It is yours; but she has 
listened to the ideas of another than you." 

Himself: "So she may in books." 

His Anti-conscience : " No, but it is the 
man that she first feels behind his ideas. 
Such is woman s nature. She is especially 
susceptible." 

His Conscience : " She is noble and good. 
She loves me wholly, utterly. I may not 
question her. Go back now to her, thou! 
Take her in my arms and love her." 

He went to the side of the road and took 
out his knife to cut an alder stick. While 
he was hidden in the bushes an open car 
riage passed. There were some ladies: Mrs. 
Locker, Mrs. Colonel Bradley, and another. 
As they went by, he heard one of them say 
in a loud, masculine voice : 

" Why, he is there every day, all day long." 

" I didn t think Mr. Sundown was that 
sort of a man," replied another, and the car 
riage passed on. 

Jack did not cut the alder. He sat 
drearily on the fence a few moments, while 
his conscience said : 

" You are doing wrong to distrust her 
slightest thought." 



(Bramercg ftarfc. 



He returned home, inwardly in a state of 
keenest sadness, outwardly a little pale and 
looking rather old. Florence had gone up 
stairs with Dorothy. Presently he heard her 
singing softly : 

" Sweet and low, 
Sweet and low. 
Father will come to thee soon. " 

" Idiot that I am to torment myself for 
nothing, "he said so savagely that Mrs. Heath 
looked up from her paper surprised. 

" What is the matter, Jack?" she asked. 

"People are not stationary," he insisted 
vaguely. 

" I have heard your father say that there 
were a great many paper men in the world." 
She looked up and caught his amused smile. 
It was an innocent little trick of hers to 
speak to him of her husband as " your father. " 

"People fluctuate change," he said. 
" Nothing remains long the same We Amer 
icans crave new pleasures, new excitements, 
and with women of course it must be so. 
I m an idiot, that s all, mother." 

She looked at him with an expression of 
utter lack of comprehension. 

He ran his eye over the shelf of books 



ramercg fcarfe. 87 



above the wide brick mantel, and took down 
one, "Taylor s Holy Living and Dying." 
She looked up very much reassured, as he 
added inconsequently, " Sundown is very 
much of a gentleman: let s have him dine 
with us to-morrow, by all means." 




XIV. 

^N September De Ford gave himself 
a vacation of a few weeks, and 
he persuaded Florence to take 
the baby and its paraphernalia 
down to the seaside. He proposed going to 
Eye Beach, which was not so many miles 
away, and going by carriage in easy stages. 
As he would be with her now it mattered not 
where they went seaward, and so they had 
determined upon the wide level shore of 
Eye. Florence put against the plan all 
her mother s, all her woman s fears. The 
dangers to baby were recounted again and 
again. The dangers of storms, of crossing 
railway tracks, the dangers of bridges, of 
swollen streams, and oh if Dorothy were to 
be kidnapped! 

" Who would want such a little red 
Indian?" he laughed. 

" Who would want her?" cried Florence, 
flying at her child and snatching it to her 
bosom. " The whole world wants her ! The 



ramercg park. 89 



naughty, horrid everybody!" And she fell 
to kissing the little mite with great unction. 

Dorothy set up a wail of protest. No 
young and jealous parent is ever so pleased 
as when the infant cries proceed from some 
indiscretion on the part of the other parent. 

" Let me take her," laughed Jack, reaching 
out his hands. " You don t know how to 
treat her with the dignity she deserves." 

Florence bridled a little. It was quite 
true that the fickle Dorothy was always will 
ing to leave her mamma for her papa s strong 
arms. She stretched out her arms now, and 
ceased her wails at once. 

" Yes, she doesn t see you every day and 
night; she doesn t get tired of you as she 
does of me." 

" As if any one could ever get tired of you, 
my sweetheart," he said impulsively, with a 
sudden accession of kindness. 

Florence smiled very sweetly. She was a 
woman who seemed to grow and shine like a 
rare flower in happiness. Gentle thoughts 
always pervaded her; but they rose to the 
surface oftener when she felt her husband s 
love and bathed in its glory, as it were. 

" It is these long absences from you and 
Dorothy that I dislike so much," he said. 



90 6ramerce parfc, 

" Ah, Florry, we ought never to be away 
from each other an instant, not an instant." 

"When do we start for the seashore?" she 
asked, for her opposition had now melted 
away. 

"Day after to-morrow." 

"So soon?" 

Her nervous, restless husband gave her the 
baby to hold and lit a cigarette. " Why 
not?" he said. " I want to get on the move. 
I mean to take three days in going a hundred 
miles. It will be a grand cavalcade, a sort 
of royal progress, a caravan. There will be 
our carriage, the baggage- wagon, and the old 
folks carriage. I ve arranged it all where 
we stop each night, and where we picnic 
along the road, for lunch, under the trees. 
It will be great fun." 

She saw that he was delighted with his 
plans, and she entered into them with a ficti 
tious glee. Inwardly she feared all manner 
of things, animate and inanimate, from run 
away horses down to mad dogs. 

Yet when the " day after to-morrow" came 
and the cavalcade started (the older couple 
were great enthusiasts for this carriage jour 
ney), Florence put on a brave countenance. 
In the first place she held Dorothy close in 



0ramerc parfe. 91 

her arms, and a woman with her child is 
afraid of nothing concrete that actually con 
fronts her. In the second place she looked 
at the slow old horses, at faithful old Mr. 
Higgins, their driver, and was reassured when 
he said solemnly: 

" Them brutes d rayther lay daownan roll 
n draw five folks the hull way ter Eye." 

"Five folks four folks," said Florence 
quickly. 

"Me an you, the nuss, Mr. De Ford, an 
the babbyisjest five," he maintained stoutly. 

"Oh, the baby!" she laughed, very much 
pleased. Little things made her happy in 
these days. 

" Why them harses is mos old s I be," he 
added. "Don t hev no fears, mum; I m 
a-drivin this ere barooch. I m a-drivin it 
slow a puppus. We ain t goin fer to race 
daown. We re goin ter take it easy so 
g long!" 

Papa and mamma drove their own team, a 
comfortable wide buggy with a pair of young 
and lively horses. It was not considered by 
Mr. Higgins as stylish a turn-out as their 
own, for " barooches" were a rarity in the 
mountains. The lively young horses carried 
the old people along at a rapid gait, and Mr. 



92 ramercg parft. 

Heath, who was always a stickler for prompt 
ness, was always " ready and waitin " for 
them at the end of the day s trip. 

Days of great happiness they were, " a 
royal progress," Jack called it a progress 
diversified by many halts, by lunches nuder 
the sheltering forest trees, by little baths 
au pieds in the cool mountain-brooks. They 
slowly drew by the many clean little farms, 
the full barns, the wide pastures containing 
dainty, sleek cattle. They slept in comfort 
able country inns on feather beds, and even 
ate the tough country fried steaks with 
relish. 

Nearly every one passed them on the road 
and smiled, but they were a little rolling 
world in themselves and cared not. They 
were happy then. 

They never felt afterward quite such 
happiness, such isolation. The third day 
they drew within sight and smell of the sea, 
and the cool, salty breath coming across the 
wide flats raised Dorothy s thin little curls 
and cooled their own brows. 

" del!" cried the French nou-nou, " la belle 
mer /" It was almost the first word she had 
spoken. She loved the sea, as all Normandy 
French paasant women do. They had not 



(Bramercg ff&gt;arfc. 93 

regarded lier presence especially on the front 
seat before them. They believed their affec 
tion was untranslatable in the French. 
Happy days, indeed, when their stolid, smil 
ing, staring nurse did not prevent a hasty 
occasional kiss. 

So they accomplished their descent from 
the mountains, and came out upon the sandy 
shores of Eye. 

They were not, however, to be entirely 
without adventure. As they approached the 
little village on the sea a horse carrying a 
lady came dashing madly down the road 
toward them. Jack quickly jumped out be 
fore his wife could detain him, and, seizing 
a rail of the fence, held it across the run 
away s path. It brought the horse to a stand 
still in short order. 

The lady merely thanked De Ford coolly 
and rather disdainfully, and, whipping her 
steed again into a furious canter, passed on 
as if she had not been running away at 
all. 

Afterward they knew the young lady as a 
" Miss Franscioli." 

" She s either a mad woman or she s 
utterly tired of life," was Jack s comment 
at the time. 
7 



94 



Florence, whose heart had been in her 
throat, cried on his shoulder. " Jack, Jack ! 
would you have killed yourself for her, dear? 
Did you not think of us?" 




XV. 

[HE hotel where they had taken a 
suite of rooms was a large one 
recently built, and there was a 
ball every night. It was now 
well filled with guests returning from the 
mountain resorts, and from the numerous 
watering-places along the northern Maine 
coast. The warm weather continued late, 
and detained many a family from returning 
to their city home. 

One morning Jack did not go down on the 
sands with them, as usual. Florence looked 
back inquiringly and observed him sitting 
in a group of fashionably-dressed ladies and 
gentlemen on the piazza. Presently a tall 
lady arose and came down the steps, and he 
followed her. They caught up with Flor 
ence as she and the nurse, carrying Dorothy, 
were slowly meandering to the shore. The 
tall young lady was very handsome, and had 
the patrician air of a grand dame. She was 
dressed elegantly in a morning gown of white 
95 



96 (Sramercg fcarfc. 

crepe; she wore a large hat, covered with 
ilowers. 

"Miss Franscioli, I want you to know my 
wife," said Jack. 

"I m delighted to meet you," said Miss 
Franscioli, grasping Florence s hand with 
the high elbow shake. " After what Mr. 
Sundown has said of you, I feel I have 
already half-made your acquaintance. lie 
came down here, as you have done, from 
the mountains, and he could talk of no one 
but his Madonna. 

As she spoke Miss Franscioli turned and 
smiled at De Ford, who flushed a little and 
twirled his mustachios. She had a sinuous, 
wasp waist, and she held herself very erect, 
inclining her head to one side, which oddly 
gave her a slightly deprecatory air. She 
smiled and let her white sun-umbrella fall on 
her shoulder tentatively. 

" I have heard Mr. Sundown speak of you, 
Mrs. Franscioli." 

" It is Miss Franscioli," muttered De Ford 
correctingly, and coughing a little. 

" Oh," she laughed, " it is a matter of com 
plete indifference to me what I am called. 
Every one knows my history. It has been in 
the newspapers. It is public property both 



(Bramercg jparfe. 97 

in Chicago and elsewhere. I am a divorcee, 
Mrs. De Ford, and I am yet but twenty-two." 
The frankness of the young woman had its 
vast embarrassment for Florence. 

" I am very sorry," she murmured. 

" Oh, you need not be sorry," she laughed 
gayly, making sport of it. " My divorce was 
a happier event than my marriage. But I 
did not come out in the sun here to talk 
about myself. I came out to see that beau 
tiful baby. Do let us walk on and catch up 
with it!" 

No one spoke then of the incident of the 
runaway horse the morning of their arrival. 
De Ford had spoken of it, but found he was 
considered a fool for his pains, as Miss 
Franscioli hud a way of racing her thorough 
bred along the level sandy roads at top 
speed. 

"Dorothy is hardly six months," said 
Florence apologetically, " it s but a wee little 
thing." But she was pleased to have Doro 
thy made much of. 

"Oh, it s such a little pretty sing!" cooed 
Miss Franscioli, as the smiling nou-nou 
stopped and held Dorothy out at arm s- 
length, for the lady to admire. 

If there was anything artificial in Miss 



98 GramercE parfc. 

Franscioli s raptures they did not perceive 
it. Florence said afterward that she did not 
offer to take it in her arms. 

"But what of that?" replied Jack; "it 
does not always bespeak insincerity in a 
woman not to grab and tumble up a baby?" 
He was jealous for Dorothy, too; but did half 
the women at the hotel who raved over her 
offer to take her? Nonsense! 

Florence was not strong enough to walk 
very far on the sands that morning, but Jack 
wanted some exercise, and he looked around 
to Miss Franscioli, asking her if she cared to 
walk. 

"Yes," she said decidedly," and I bathe at 
twelve o clock. I don t care how cold the 
water is. I plunge in and plunge out again. 
It gives me a splendid glow from my neck to 
my heels. I could run you a race then, 
though you do look like an athlete, Mr. De 
Ford." She scanned him critically. 

"He was at college," said Florence 
proudly. "What was your record, Jack? 
A hundred feet in eleven seconds?" 

"Just about," said De Ford sarcastically, 
making a grimace. 

Miss Franscioli laughed. " Oh, you fine 
athletic young Americans and Englishmen ! 



(Bramercg ff&gt;arh. 99 

I wish I were a man! I d like to beat you 
all in a foot-race." 

Florence looked somewhat startled, while 
Jack laughed. She amused him very much. 
She seemed such a good fellow ! She seemed 
so healthy also. It was a relief to be with a 
woman who required no assistance every step 
or two. How she swung off with him on the 
smooth shore, leaving her sun-umbrella stick 
ing in the sands ! What a glow in her pas 
sionate, handsome face ! What an intoxica 
tion in her voice! Her eyes had a flash in 
them. He made her walk very fast, too out 
of a spirit of mischief. When they were at 
the farthest point from the hotel and quite 
out of sight from Florence, she flung herself 
on the white, dry sands in the sun. 

"Sit here a moment," she begged him 
laughingly, "you have winded me." . . . 
After a little quick breathing-pause: "Tell 
me, that is a beautiful wife of yours. She 
has distinction. But I see she does not 
like me." 

"I think you wrong her; every one must 
like you." 

"She doesn t like the Miss, " and Miss 
Franscioli made a pretty pout, as if it were 
but a small matter. 



loo OramercE path. 

" That is where I beg leave to differ with 
her, then. I think the Miss is very piquant ; 
it is very brave." 

She looked at him carefully. Y"es, he de 
liberately meant it. He intended to make 
her a compliment. 

" Oh, if you knew what I have suffered 
what my life has been! It is a fancy of 
mine to keep my former husband s name, 
yet just Miss it." 

"You will not keep it long," he laughed. 

Another compliment ! " There is some 
thing to this handsome young Benedict, after 
all, who so bravely stopped my horse," she 
said to herself. 

" Wild horses could not drag me into an 
other such mesalliance. No! I will now live 
and die an old maid!" 

De Ford was amused. " She is free and 
outspoken with me," he thought, " because 
lam an old married man, and because she is 
so Western. She can say what she likes." 
He enjoyed her confidences, begun so soon, 
although he had only met her the night be 
fore, and spoken with her a brief half-hour 
in company with a number of New York 
people he knew at the hotel, on the wide 
veranda. After a little she rose abruptly 



Oramercp iparfe. 101 



and sauntered back, talking all the while 
rapidly, and telling him so many things 
about herself as if he cared. When they 
reached the little group (the old people had 
now joined them) she was talking to him 
about stocks, and asking his advice about in 
vestments. She had just had twenty-five 
thousand dollars come in from a paid-up 
mortgage. What should she do with it 
how invest it? She had heard of his Wall 
Street firm it was well known all over the 
country. 

" If you will wait till I get back to town, 
I can take care of it," he said immensely 
flattered. 

"Oh, will you?" She fairly clapped her 
hands until her rings jingled. She had 
pretty hands, very long and ladylike, and 
she made much use of them. Altogether she 
was a woman of ton and beauty. In fact, all 
the men at Rye were fascinated by Miss 
Franscioli. All the women viewed her with 
a faint suspicion. 

" She is so brave and frank, she s so hon 
est," said the men. 

" It s bravado," said the women. 

" She is no hypocrite," said the husbands. 

" She is artfully artless," said the wives. 



102 ramercg parfe. 

To begin with, Miss Franscioli played 
billiards, and had been seen at a late hour in 
a quiet corner to smoke a cigarette. The 
women at once pronounced her terribly 
risque. She followed this up by being a 
dashing rider and a daring swimmer. She 
announced that she was an athlete, and that 
she believed in nothing aufin du siecle. The 
women at this were in consternation. But 
at this juncture Mrs. Berrian Deland, of 
New York, arrived from Mt. Desert. Mrs. 
Berrien Deland was a noted woman in 
society, and she openly patronized and ap 
plauded Miss Franscioli. So after that she 
was tolerated, and even admired. They be 
gan to say of her that this wild creature de 
lighted in showing her worst side, in putting 
always her worst foot foremost that she 
was not really so bad. Mrs. Deland had 
known her very well in Washington. She 
had much to say of her heroic conduct toward 
young Picton, the senator s son. The lad 
was wildly in love with her, but she had sent 
him flying. 

Indeed, she had sent many men flying. It 
was true she admitted it she never in 
tended to marry again. But she was to be a 
personage, fascinating, intellectual, brilliant, 



ramercg frarfc. 103 

overpowering! Florence was instinctively 
afraid of her. After a week she longed to get 
away from Rye. She was ready to go back to 
New York. Jack seemed so odd, so different 
there. He was always laughing and joking 
with Miss Franscioli. Once or twice she 
went upstairs to bed and cried herself to 
sleep. She said nothing to her mother, to 
any one except to Dorothy. Jack was so 
thoughtless! The passionate outbursts she 
poured into the baby s little pink ears ! Poor, 
astonished little Dorothy, she often wailed 
in protesting response ! 

They had been so happy in the high, pure, 
sweet air of the mountains; and now, if Jack 
would only stay by her side a minute, they 
would be so happy here! She loved the sea; 
the surf in the moonlight was simply grand 
at Eye. What reproachful glances she 
looked at him ! 

One day he laughed : " Now be amiable, 
Florry; let me have a good time. It s my 
outing. I like to have a little freedom. 
Must I sit and read to you all day? Ee- 
member, I am going back to work soon. I 
want all the exercise and riding I can get. 
Eemember, dear, I love you, always always. 
But remember, too, my darling, that I am 



104 GramercE ffmrfc. 



still half a boy. Lot me play and amuse my 
self a little." 

Miss Franscioli confided in her too, and 
Florence could not help pitying her. Her 
gayety was largely fictitious. She had had 
an unhappy, unsatisfied life. " Do you 
know what it is to have had so much despair 
that your whole soul is scorched into a dull, 
hard shell?" she asked. "That is the way 
with me. What do I care for anything or 
anybody now? The world s mine oyster, 
which I with my wit will open. If I was a 
man I would have said sword. I wish I 
were a man! I would like to fight." 

To Florence it was all incomprehensible. 
Miss Franscioli was so outside all her reckon 
ing! Still she found an excuse to pity her 
in it all. She was evidently far from being 
happy. She was just a little too hectic, too 
excitable. She was very rich, however, and 
made a display of her Paris toilets, which 
attracted immense feminine attention. Her 
figure was excellent. She was a graceful 
dancer. She was still young and at times 
could cleverly act the ingenue. She had lived 
in the rich, plastic society of Chicago, and had 
danced till morning in the gay carnival balls 
of St. Louis and New Orleans. At seventeen 



(Bramercg E&gt;ar&. 105 

she rode on a car as " Venus" in the Mardi 
Gras. She was " old " then. She knew the 
rich, rough, passionate Western world. It is 
presumable that she led the staid French 
banker, Franscioli, a merry dance for two 
years. The men knew all about her at Eye. 
There was one thing about the Franscioli 
she concealed nothing. She was altogether 
too frank. She was so gay, charming, full 
oiespieylerie, chic, bravado. She loved to be 
advertised. She said herself that she was 
going back to Paris ; she had already spent a 
season there as the beautiful bride of M. 
Franscioli, of New Orleans. She was going 
back to Paris to make one of the true aufin 
du siecle set. She was taking her farewell 
of America. But finally, one day, Louise 
Franscioli took a sudden fancy for Tuxedo 
it was a letter from a dear friend of hers, 
who had written describing all the glories 
of the coming fall season. She went away 
impulsively with hardly any announcement, 
alone, with her maid. She liked to do these 
things. 

After she was gone Florence had no fur 
ther reason to shed tears alone with Dorothy 
as a confidante. Jack became very devoted, 
but Eye soon became an intolerable bore to 



106 OramercE parfc. 

him. A week later they arrived, for good 
and all, in Gramercy Park. 

The old house never looked dearer to her. 
"Ah," she exclaimed, as she entered, "I 
wish things were different in New York! 
Why is the climate so wicked? Why do we 
ever have to go away and be homeless? The 
park is prettier yes, than Franconia ! The 
trees are quite as green, and it would not be 
dull here with you, Jack." She looked at 
her husband wistfully. 

"See it in August," he laughed. "See 
the sun baking the brown stone into a dingy 
yellow ; feel the heavy hot air surging out of 
the dense over-populated east side ; note the 
pungent and deadly odor of the ailanthus 
trees. But it s a pity, though, that we can t 
move the house bodily away to some spot 
where we could live summer and winter. As 
I have often said, we ought never to be 
separated never!" And he kissed her. 




XVI. 

MEAN never to go away from him 
never again, no matter how hot 
it may be ; no matter how Doro 
thy may need a change. We will 
take a cottage near the city. If it is nec 
essary, the house here may be sold, and we 
can all go where it is possible to live in 
one s own home the year around." 

Mamma was getting used to these little 
confidences from Florence. She paid little 
attention to them generally. Now she said : 
" It was not the way in my time. I never 
left your father to melt alone through July 
and August never! In September we 
usually went for two or three weeks on a 
trip out West or to Boston, where your fa 
ther s family were." 

" Oh, mamma, if it were only so in these 
days ! Is New York hotter than then ? Why 
do wives desert their husbands as they do? 
It is wrong! It is wrong!" she cried pas 
sionately; "Jack used to say so himself." 
107 



108 CJramercE parfc. 

"It isn t the heat," said mamma. "It s 
cool enough country-houses are never quite 
so cool in summer but it is so debilitating. 
Men move about go down to their offices; 
it doesn t affect them especially, but women 
who are forced to stay grow thin and pale 
indoors." 

The question came up at dinner a night 
or two later. 

" Stay in town all summer!" cried papa in 
sarcastic glee. " It would be un-American ; 
a family must split up nowadays, separate, 
husband from wife; daughters must go 
visiting about among other families; sons 
must push out alone into the fishing-camps 
of Canada; it s the correct thing. Isn t a 
long winter-time enough for those whom 
God has joined together to endure one an 
other? And even in winter must not the 
wife depart for Florida or Virginia?" 

" A man and wife ought never, except un 
der the gravest necessity, be separated," 
said Jack, carving the turkey solemnly. It 
was one of his finest truisms. 

"Ah, Jack!" cried Florence, gladly echo 
ing him, and nodding at the same time to 
mamma. Jack seemed to speak from the 
heart. 



&lt;5ramerc iparfc. 109 

As the season .advanced there was every 
indication of its being very gay. Florence 
returned to the city, felt the bracing October 
air with increasing health and strength. 
She realized that she had given her husband 
a year of invalidism, and she determined to 
make amends. She planned many dinners. 
She determined to have a ball in Christmas 
Aveek. Thanksgiving Day they dined their 
college foot-ball team crestfallen with its 
defeat by Yale and gave them a reassuring 
dance afterward, the wide drawing-room be 
ing elaborately done in crimson for the occa 
sion. They held two grand receptions. 
They entertained celebrities. Papa became 
a great talker; he had shrewd, keen, level 
headed ideas of things in spite of his amus 
ing pessimism ; it being once admitted that 
we were the worst-managed, most ill-admin 
istered government in the world, he acknowl 
edged we were doing very well. Grant him 
the fact that the city was managed by a den 
of thieves, and it was a capital place to live. 
He loved dearly to growl, but he never cared 
personally to participate in an effort of re 
form. He had the usual New York business 
man s penny-wise and pound-foolish attitude. 
He never could leave his business long enough 



no GJramercg 



to more than vote, and " this complicated, 
new-fangled system of registration and voting 
in vogue was beginning to take a great 
quantity of time, don t you know," even for 
that! 

One night it was in the middle of Febru 
ary, and many things were crowding in be 
fore Lent they had been to a dance and 
cotillion at a large fashionable house on 
North Washington Square. Florence, as 
was her wont, went first, before removing 
her wraps, to the baby s crib. She stooped 
and leaned over. Dorothy was flushed and 
feverish. Her little blue eyes were wide 
open, yet she was not making a sound. She 
seemed to enjoy the vision of her beautiful 
mamma as she knelt at her crib-side, in her 
soft fur-lined opera cloak falling half-down 
her lovely shoulders. She liked to see the 
glittering diamonds in her ears, in the neck 
lace at her throat, for she laughed and 
gurgled. Then she began to cough a little. 

"Jack, come here!" called Florence. 

He was smoking a cigarette just before 
going to bed. He laid it down on the man 
tel and crossed the room. 

"It s the grip! See how feverish she is! 
It may be scarlet fever." 



(Sramercg fcarfc. ill 

" Oh, ridiculous!" 

He raised the little mite of human life in 
his arms and brought it to the light. Flor 
ence clasped her hands tragically. 

" This comes of my going out night after 
night, and neglecting her. Oh, Jack if 
she should die!" 

"It s nothing. She has a cold," he said. 

But the next morning Dorothy was worse. 

They sent post-haste for Dr. Chesney, and 
in two or three days the fever was gone, the 
little throat was better. Florence sat up 
two nights with the child, while her husband 
slept. She grew pale with worriment and 
watching. At the end of a week, Dr. Chesney 
said gravely : " I must send you at once to 
Florida both you and the baby." Dr. 
Chesney was a finished, polished, skilful little 
man, with a bald shiny crown. He had a 
way of ordering people to Florida as he 
would order them to take a walk or ride. 
He never especially recommended the hotel 
in which he had an interest. People found 
out for themselves which his hotel was, and 
went to it for the especial treatment. In 
winter he prescribed Florida, in summer the 
Adirondacks. As he had recently bought a 
tract in Ontario, where he was putting up 



112 (Bramercg 



a large hotel, lie was already beginning to 
speak of the " ozone of the Canadian forests. " 
This little doctor, the arbiter of fate of 
many families, never hesitated a moment to 
split them up divide husband and wife; he 
cared not an atom, apparently, for their 
moral well-being. lie had effected some 
remarkable physical cures. And one thing 
can be said of the intelligent little man he 
often sent some poor patient to his Southern 
hotel free of expense. When he did these 
generous things all the world knew it and 
liked him for it, and he prescribed for them 
as a consequence. 

" It s for Dorothy s sake only, Jack," said 
Florence, distressed. 

" Why, of course you must go," he in 
sisted, half-attentively, for he was perusing 
the paper. " You must go at once. " 

How good Jack was! Papa openly pro 
tested. " Of course Florence must have her 
mother with her. Their family-life was to 
be completely broken up, then. I don t be 
lieve it s necessary," he said; "Dr. Chesney 
is always sending people to his hotels. I 
don t believe in sitting about and watch 
ing every turn of the thermometer. Our 
climate so trying? Why, it s not so! It 



&lt;3ramercg fcarfe. 113 

used to be severe, but it s changed; it s the 
finest climate in the world to-day. There is 
no place that has so much sunshine, so many 
fine days as New York. If they go to Florida 
it will be warm and moist, and if they get 
rid of the grip they ll catch malaria in place 
of it." 

Women, in questions decided for them by 
their doctor, have a way of ignoring opposi 
tion. They talked in low voices now, moth 
er and daughter, of their necessary prep 
arations and of the day they should start, 
while the old gentleman went on: 

" What are Jack and I to do? Don t you 
owe us any allegiance?" It s lonely living in 
this great house without you. We ll have 
to take to drink." 

Even this threat was unheeded. Jack, in 
evening-dress, was reading the Post., prepar 
atory to going over to his club. It was his 
whist-night. He had already many times 
cheerfully advised going to Florida, " if it 
was best." Florence only thought of Dor 
othy. 

At the moment in his dress-coat pocket 
was a letter, the writing of which was in the 
fashionable " long" style. The address nearly 
covered the entire envelope. Miss Franscioli 



114 GramercE parh. 



had written him a business letter from New 
Orleans. She informed him that she was to 
be in New York permanently after the fol 
lowing week. She intended buying a "nice 
little house, "and setting up an establishment 
somewhere. She also planned a small invest 
ment in stocks. 

It was not worth while to show Florence a 
business letter. It was not worth while to 
speak of Miss Franscioli. He had reason to 
believe his Avife disliked her. Why, he 
couldn t imagine, 




XVII. 

the days of Florence s ab 
sence in the South, Jack saw very 
little of his father-in-law. The 
old gentleman did not care very 
much for his club had not been brought up 
to regard it as a necessity. Clubs came into 
prominence in New York after the war, and 
his young manhood was passed in ante 
bellum days. Down town he lunched at 
Parrish son John Street, and met there most 
of his old business friends; it was " club " 
enough for him. He preferred to pass his 
evenings at home, and very often he went to 
bed early, having nothing to do. Very often, 
too, an old friend dropped in, and they sat 
and talked of the old days and the changes 
that were going on, and he frequently read 
aloud Florry s last letter. Mr. Heath loved 
to revile the modern life and to say all man 
ner of harsh things about it. " This idea of 
going away South after the first of January," 
he said, " was mere doctor s rubbish. Can t 
115 



116 (Sramercg iparfc. 

the women ever stay at home with their hus 
bands and mind their business?" The favor 
able reports about Dorothy, however, recon 
ciled him a little to his wife s and daughter s 
absence. 

Jack got in the habit of dining at the 
club. He knew it was dismal enough for his 
father-in-law at home, but it was a terrible 
ordeal to have to sit through a long perfunc 
tory dinner and listen to the old gentleman s 
diatribes, delivered in a most lugubrious, 
harsh, rasping tone of voice, and levelled at 
everything Jack particularly affected. They 
came to see very little of each other, meeting 
only at breakfast and exchanging news about 
Dorothy and their wives at St. Augustine. 

One morning the old gentleman said : " I 
think of running down to see them. You ll 
go, Jack? I ll engage two compartments; 
it shan t cost you a cent." 

" N no I can t get away. We have a 
big deal on." 

" To tell the truth, I m getting lonely," 
said the elder, as he lit a small cigar. 

Jack looked at him half pityingly. 
" That s just where clubs come in to lonely 
husbands." 

" I don t believe in it," and the old gentle- 



ramercg frarfe. 117 

man beat his fist on the table savagely. " Our 
family should not be broken up in this way. 
I admit that Dorothy s health is paramount 
just now, but should we all go off in so many 
different directions just because the baby has 
a sore throat? Family-life is the right life, 
my boy. Now here is a pretty state of 
affairs: it s only March, and yet they are 
in Florida, you at your club the house is 
empty. I don t like it. It s wrong; it s 
abominable!" 

" Why, how are we going to help it, sir?" 
said De Ford amused, standing, legs wide 
apart, before the low fire of soft coal which 
was crackling up the chimney. " It s better 
for the baby, it s better for Florry. Do you 
remember a year ago? Did you like those 
days when we went about fearing to breathe 
while she hung between life and death? I 
am glad we are able to send them to Florida." 

" Yes, and as soon as they do come home 
we shall have to send them away again, 
North, to separate for the summer." 

" That s the climate s fault." 

" The climate ! What did Florry s mother 
do in the old days? At that time people 
could not procure these temporary divorces 
so easily." 



118 &lt;3ramcrc fcarfc. 

Jack laughed, and his irate father-in-law 
went on : " Xo, no, I m not talking for fun 
I mean it! It s wrong that a man should be 
left alone among all these city temptations, 
his wife off enjoying herself somewhere. 
She is no helpmeet to him. lie doesn t 
protect licr. Now, Jack, I m an old city 
man, and I know the world pretty well, and 
I hear a good deal of talk here and there. 
I pick up a good deal. I know what s going 
on, what with the pretty type-writers, and 
the pretty sales-ladies, and the working- 
girl whose head is turned by a little flattery, 
and who is fond of finery and a new bonnet 
and cloak." 

Jack became very serious. " There is a lot 
of that sort of thing going on," he said. 
" It s true, but I don t quite see the connec 
tion." 

" Why, I m told it s the married men that 
do the most of that sort of thing." 

Jack nodded. " So I hear," he said ; " but 
I guess if a man is selfish and bad, he is 
so even if his wife is here with him." 

" Not so apt to be. We are poor, erring 
human critters, Jack. As my good old 
dominie said last Sunday I wish you d been 
to church instead of driving we are devilish 



119 



prone to sin, as the sparks are to fly upward. 
But if we are left idle, our family-life upset 
and broken up, how much more likely we are 
to fall ! Take a poor girl and deprive her of 
family home-life and protection, and she s 
half-lost already. She has to be devilish 
strong-headed to keep straight in this vast 
city. Take a man and deprive him of his 
wife, his home; send him off to a club, where 
he meets the very worst sort of characters, as 
far as women go. Egad! he s got to be 
strong-headed not to get into the current and 
go down the stream as the rest do." 

Jack acknowledged that everything he said 
was true. 

"This modern American life," he said 
slowly, " it is strange ; it is wrong ! There I 
meet Tom Challinor, Archibald, Harry Tal- 
madge, Disbrow all married men, with their 
wives in Europe or somewhere. There is a 
regular married man s set at the club. I 
don t pretend to know all that they do." 

He did not tell his father-in-law that he 
had accepted an invitation from Challinor 
to dine at Delmonico s the Saturday night 
following, and that there were to be several 
rather risque, " swagger" young married 
women present, and at which the champagne 



120 ramcrcE path. 



and the liqueurs were to be ad lib., and the 
women were expected to smoke the dainty 
little Egyptian cigarettes by the dozen. 

He put on a solemn face, for it suddenly 
occurred to him that it was as a philosopher 
he was examining the question of temporary 
divorce, and that it was as a philosophic 
observer of modern life and manners that 
he would attend Challinor s rather rapid 
petit diner at DePs. 

His father-in-law had often spoken against 
clubs and club-life. This morning, deep in 
his heart, he acknowledged that all he said 
was simply true. His father-in-law knew 
what he was talking about! 

He put on his hat and coat and walked 
downtown meditating upon the dangers and 
temptations which beset other people in mar 
ried life. He felt very strong, very secure 
in himself. He made no personal applica 
tion of the words he had heard. He was in 
love with his wife, devoted to Dorothy he 
was simply adamant. But only the day be 
fore a friend had told him that Sundown, 
the artist, was canoeing it in Florida. The 
fact irritated him. 

" Florry is one of those women who takes 
a lot of enjoyment in the present," he said 



Gramercg parfc. 121 

to himself. " She likes best the man who is 
with her. When I think of last summer, 
I admire my own forbearance; it s because 
I believe in her, I trust her, I love her." 

This little speech to himself, attuned to 
his own ear so perfectly, gave him a warm 
pleasant glow, as he marched down Broadway 
on the left side, with his silk hat so well 
brushed, his walking-coat with a bachelor s 
button so cJiic, his stick so light and fashion 
able. The pretty shop-girls stared and half- 
furtively smiled; he was handsome as an 
Apollo. He swung along with a fine air of 
aplomb, of success. He was liked. He was 
"square," he was ambitious. Nothing so 
fired his ambition, so poised his flight up 
ward as this walk down Broadway of a sunny 
winter s morning. The bustle, the noise, 
the crowd, the roar, filled his heart and 
nerves like the music of battle. He passed 
by the towering business houses feeling 
keenly the motive of the time, of the hour 
commerce. He regretted not that the Jews 
had plastered their names from Grace to 
Trinity Church, or that the Irish flag floated 
on the City Hall; he had a fine democratic 
feeling of " letting the best man win." The 
grand life of action, of fighting for money and 



122 (Bramercg fl&gt;arfe. 

supremacy filled him, surging through his 
veins like fire. He felt he was a part of the 
true "great world" of New York, and that 
the little silly world of fashion uptown was 
but a puny thing. Vive Vhomme d affaires ! 




XVIII. 

HEN he presented himself at Del- 
monico s for Challinor s dinner 
he was still filled with his enthu 
siasm for business success and 
power. It seemed to be the all in all for 
him. He had passed through the youthful 
love-period that was over. Women could 
no longer especially charm him. He would 
be rich, powerful, a man of business. That 
very day he had made ten thousand dollars 
by a fortunate turn; it intoxicated him. A 
foreigner might think it strange that this 
man of business cared nothing for his city s 
political welfare. It was nothing to him. 
He cared not what Irishman held the reins. 
Like his father-in-law, Jack occasionally 
condemned city politics as " corrupt; " but 
he never thought of giving his attention to 
the matter. Which of his friends did? 
Politics in Xew York, forsooth, were hardly 
the occupation of a gentleman ! 

They already asked him to take a respon- 
123 



124 &lt;3ramerc ftarfc. 

sible position on an important committee of 
the Stock Exchange i.e., he was a coming 
man. Every one knew he was the " brains" 
of " Beach, Catherly & De Ford." Women 
played a small part in his future. His wife, 
to be sure, would always second him finely. 
He was proud of her beauty. But even his 
Avife he noticed the same phenomenon the 
summer previous when she was away so long 
did not now often enter into his dreams. 
She seemed now to be always looking at him, 
as it were, from the outside, now discrimin 
atingly, and not, as formerly, from the in 
side, enthusiastically. 

Challinor greeted him cordially. He was 
a pale, modest-looking little man, of the finest 
manners and the most stoical countenance. 
He came of most excellent family, and his 
wife and children were spending the winter 
on the Riviera. 

Archibald, a handsome New York dandy, 
was a well-known swell, who, in a fit of ab 
sent-mindedness, had married a poor but 
pretty artist. He was a good fellow, and 
his wife and children were somewhere in 
Georgia enjoying the pleasant June-like 
weather. Jack shook him by the hand. 

Disbrow, celebrated as a "lady killer, "not 



&lt;3ramerc iparfc. 125 



at all a handsome man, but a prodigious 
talker; a nervous, irritable man who had 
written a series of unsuccessful novels, stood 
taking off his gloves. He was a well-mean 
ing man among men, and his wife was at 
present in Sioux City for purposes other than 
health. 

Harry Talmadge " much-married Harry," 
they called him at the club. He was a short, 
fat, exceeding popular man, with a wife who 
rarely left the city summer or winter while 
business kept him there. Harry Talmadge 
had long been an operator on Wall Street, 
and knew Jack very well. He completed the 
list of male guests at the dinner. His wife 
had gone for a temporary stay in the 
country. 

When they entered the little drawing-room 
out of the dining-room, Jack was surprised 
to see Miss Franscioli standing before the long 
cheval glass in a superb Paris gown of black 
satin. He went up and spoke to her at once. 
They met now as old intimes. Near her 
stood several handsome women, to whom 
Challinor introduced him. 

Mrs. Bronson, whose husband was forever 
shooting on the Chesapeake; Mrs. Berrian 
Deland, who played the part of indulgent 
9 



126 (SramercB parfc. 

chaperon, and complained that her husband 
was still detained in London on business, 
beamed on him. Mrs. Bronx, whose husband 
was spending his time yachting among the 
West Indian Islands, said to him: "You 
know I can t endure the water" (here she 
sighed plaintively), " and my husband is pas 
sionately fond of his yacht. What can one 
do? Quevoila? We separate, and I try to 
worry along without him by means of my 
many friends." 

Mrs. Bronx made an upward movement of 
the eyelids that was positively saint-like. 

Jack took in Miss Franscioli, and was 
placed next her at table. It was an expen 
sive, elaborate dinner, and there was but one 
wine from oysters to coffee, after the latest 
club fad. 

" I have been very ill," Miss Franscioli said 
"the grip; but I am well again. I have 
bought a little house here, Mr. De Ford. A 
new little house, far up on the west side, and 
it is filled with everything I could find and 
scrape together in Europe, lots of rare curi 
osities. Come up and see it." 

He had already seen and been in the house, 
but she said this for effect. She never looked 
so beautiful to him. The poise of her head, 



(Sramercs parfc. 127 

her fluffy, pretty hair, her smile fascinated 
him. Her shoulders were superb. What 
style, what verve she had! In his then feel 
ing of business conquest he felt he would love 
to conquer her, and trail her, as it were, in 
his triumphant procession behind his chariot- 
wheel. They had had several business con 
sultations together, had lunched twice at 
Savarin s. He felt himself pleased to know 
of her social success, to learn that she was 
" positively flooded with the swellest invita 
tions." 

Challinor said it was a consolation dinner. 
Every one present must be deemed in the 
depths of woe. Then he thought of Miss 
Franscioli and stammered : " Some of us 
have escaped " 

She burst out laughing, saying, " You are 
making matters worse!" And Disbrow 
quoted, sot to voce : 

"My heart still hovering round about you, 
I thought I could not live without you ; 
But &ince we ve been three months asunder, 
How I lived with you is the wonder !" 

"Out of sight, out of mind," said Mrs. 
Bronx, with a laugh, quoting in her turn: 



128 ramercB parfe. 

" That friends, however friends they were, 
Still deal with things as things occur, 
And that, excepting for the blind, 
What s out of sight, is out of mind." 

Archibald repudiated this sentiment with 
great vim. Jack remained silent. 

Every one else seemed to be pervaded with 
the idea that marriage was a capital thing 
to make game of. Wit is fond of her sister, 
Irreverence. Wit insists on perfect freedom ; 
it admires nothing, it respects nothing. 
Marriage was but a joke, after all! 

The dinner was soon, without losing its 
decorous character, full of laughter and 
point. There were several piquant little 
stories of a worldly turn. American gentle 
men are never very " free" in their cups with 
their women, even with those they do not en 
tirely respect, and the conversation never 
verged on the " impossible." Challinor had 
in, at the end of it, the pretty Spanish dan- 
seuse, then attracting much interest in New 
York. She was pretty and graceful, and, 
when she finished her pas seul, the men filled 
her slipper with champagne and drank out 
of it. It was considered a gallant act. Do 
Ford preferred his in his glass. The room 
was brilliant with light, the table a mass of 



ramercs iparfe. 129 

roses, the music of the Spanish guitars was 
soft and sensuous. There was a luxurious 
air of splendor over all. Archibald, who was 
an exceedingly proper, if a somewhat dull 
young man, leaned his elbows on the table 
he was smoking a cigarette and looked 
across at Jack. Apparently he was having, 
at the instant, a momentary bad half-minute 
of self-reproach. " Our poor wives in the 
South," he said to Jack, " may they soon be 
well enough to come home again!" and he 
drank a bumper to them. 

" Yes, here s to Dorothy," said Miss Fran- 
scioli quickly. " And here s to " Madonna" 
also, as Mr. Sundown has rightly named Mrs. 
De Ford." 

" My wife writes he is in Florida; she saw 
him," said Archibald. "Now Sundown is 
a true artist; he feels. I always wished I d 
studied art, don t you know?" 

" Do you think you can feel?" asked Miss 
Franscioli, admiring his smooth, fat aristo 
cratic face with its drooping mustachios. 

" Ah, how can you ask me?" And Archi 
bald put on a most adorable smile. 

"Oh, you men! You can never under 
stand what it is really to feel!" And Miss 
Franscioli sighed. Immediately after she 



130 (SramercE parfc. 



lit a cigarette and entered into a pitched 
battle with Disbrow over Gilbert and Sulli 
van s operas, which she detested. When they 
rose from the table Jack sought out Archi 
bald. 

"Is Sundown in St. Augustine?" 

" I believe he is, at the Alhambra yes." 

"Ah!" 

" A d d handsome fellow, too, De Ford ; 
has a frightful reputation as a lady-killer. 
Is a good shot, lived four years in Paris, and 
was always fighting duels at unearthly hours 
in the morning in the Bois de Boulogne. 
Oh, I used to know him very well, but I 
didn t care to have him call; I prefer him 
at the club." 

" Is he so disreputable?" 

" Now see here, De Ford, you and I are 
married men, by God! We look on these 
things in a different light from most men, of 
course. We re particular, egad! We both 
have deuced handsome wives, and they re 
away alone." 

Jack tried to push him away; but Archi 
bald, who was affected by the wine, insisted 
in a louder voice. 

" I I say, they re both handsome, and of 
course they re both strictly there s notli- 



&lt;3ramerc fcarft. 131 

ing they dislike more than flirting, of course. 
But at the same time they re human, De 
Ford old man " 

He could have knocked Archibald down, 
he was so angry at his stupidity. 

Miss Fraiiscioli sought to interfere to lead 
him away, and it made De Ford only the 
angrier to have her bestow this mistaken 
kindness. 

"Some men are born idiots," she whis 
pered. " Don t mind what he says." 

De Ford was pale and silent. He had not 
really the slightest cause for anger against 
poor Archibald, as he had led him on, yet he 
was dreadfully irritated. 

"Ah, you can feel," whispered the tall 
beauty, scrutinizing him narrowly, with a 
half-smile through her lorgnette. 

"Well, I m not a blockhead, anyway," he 
said shortly, turning away from her. 

He went away soon after this, and re 
turned home in the rain. His own cab had 
not come for him as ordered, and he did not 
wait for another to be called. He was too 
nervous, too feverish. At the house-door he 
found, to his intense disgust, that he had 
forgotten his latch-key, and he rang and 
rang in the pouring rain, waiting for a 



132 (BramercB parfc. 

servant to open the richly decorated door. 
Presently he heard a rattling of chains and 
saw a light. The door opened slowly, and 
his father-in-law pat his head out. 

" Oh, it s you, is it? Do you realize what 
time it is? It s nearly two." 

The old gentleman never looked so gro 
tesquely cross, so ludicrously peevish. Jack s 
good-humor returned. 

" Then it s high time you were in hed, sir," 
he laughed. 

Mr. Heath looked at him furiously, but 
said nothing. 

"Poor papa!" Jack continued. "Life is 
not half so pleasant now without them, is 
it?" 

Papa softened a little. " Why, the house 
is like a graveyard," he replied, and went 
back upstairs in his dressing-gown, looking 
very much like old Gargantua himself. 




XIX. 

[HE representatives of the old New 
York life and the new life, the 
home-loving gentleman of a past 
day, and the young man of the 
present, who must needs be somewhat in the 
fashion, and who merely used the old house 
in Gramercy Park for his brief lodgment, 
saw little of one another now for some time. 
Mr. Heath went South to find a home, if he 
could, in a sultry hotel-parlor or the dull 
discomfort of his wife s hotel bedroom. lie 
was not silent in the midst of his misfort 
unes, lie protested against the horrible 
publicity of hotels and the stupidity of 
colored waiters, the need of being agreeable 
to a horde of strangers, the elevators, and the 
numberless children who tumbled against one 
and drove so recklessly into one s legs and 
corporation. He had travelled in Florida 
before, and they had nothing new to show 
him now but their " palatial " hotels. He 
was soon tired of the "splendor" of these 
133 



134 Gramercg parfc. 

affairs, of the crowd and the music, and the 
continual feeling that he must be at Sara 
toga on a muggy day in August ! After two 
weeks of it he fell into a settled melancholy 
and pleaded for a speedy return North. Dr. 
Chesney had run down for a few days, and 
as Florence was still rather languid from the 
warm dulness of the weather, he advocated 
their going on to his hotel in the Pines 
farther south. 

" There is a very comfortable watering- 
place on a pretty bit of green, with some 
capital trees," said Mr. Heath grimly. "It 
is located in a spot they call Gramercy Park. 
There are very comfortable beds there, and 
one gets capital coffee and the morning 
papers as soon as he s up. It is also called 
Home. Do these well-dressed people we see 
careering about here know what such a place 
is?" Mrs. Heath, who secretly sided with 
him, said nothing. 

" I want to go home, papa, quite as much 
as you do," said Florence, who had been 
holding the plump little Dorothy on her 
knee. " Indeed, indeed, papa, if it were 
not for baby I would not wish to stay away 
from Jack a minute. But what does Dr. 
Chesney say: That it would be suicidal to 



GramercE iparfe. 135 

go to New York for a month yet. Don t 
yon know how sorry I am for poor Jack, sit 
ting there alone night after night in the great 
house, thinking of me and of Dorothy? I 
write to him every day and tell him every 
thing we do. I wanted to tell him about 
Mr. Sundown s reading to us yesterday, at 
the old fort ; but 1 kept myself from it, as 
he s begun Dorothy s portrait, and it s to be 
a secret. I wish he could leave business and 
come down here. But he can t, and it s 
providential that we came, for Dorothy is 
perfectly well now." 

" Well, Jack isn t !" burst out the old gen 
tleman. " That is, he s not happy. He s 
not himself. He s out at his club till all 
hours every night, and it s doing him no 
good." 

" Well, I m very glad he does go to a club," 
rejoined Florence, resolved to applaud in 
public everything her husband did. " It 
amuses him. He enjoys billiards and whist. 
I like to have him go to the City Club, the 
men are all so swell and so aristocratic. 
I like to get his letters with the club seal." 

Her father held up his hands in protest. 
" Club seal ! He ought never to date or re 
ceive a letter except at Gramercy Park! Ah, 



136 



how balmy and pleasant it must be there 
now ! I can see the tulips springing up in 
the flower-beds. Spring always gets into the 
enclosure before it appears anywhere else. 
The grass was already green before I came 
away." 

"Poor papa!" said Florence with a pity 
ing smile. 

Dr. Chesney happened up just then with 
a telegram in his hand. He looked especially 
smooth, round, shiny, and well-groomed. 
"See what you are escaping," he laughed. 
A terrible blizzard has set in, thermometer 
at zero, wires all down, snow three feet in 
Broadway. Now, do you want to return 
North? The dispatches say there never was 
anything like it not for fifty years ! New 
York is completely snowed under! Trains 
can t get through. It s something terrible!" 

"And Jack!" cried Florence alarmed. 

" Now, don t worry about your husband," 
said the doctor. " He is safely ensconced in 
that beautiful old house on Gramercy Park. 
Perhaps for a day he won t get down to busi 
ness ; well, it will do him good. He will have 
time to write us a long letter, describing this 
terrible case of weather. Ah, my dear, I m 
very glad this little life is not subjected to 



&lt;3ramercg f&gt;arft. 137 

it ;" and the good doctor bent down and kissed 
the little cooing mite, with a vast show of 
affection. 

Florence turned to her father in triumph. 
" So this is your mild spring, New York 
climate, papa, the most salubrious in the 
world?" she laughed. 

The old gentleman for once had nothing 
to say. Papa, it must be confessed, looked 
rather put out. When the doctor was out 
of hearing, however, he said, with a shrug : 
"It s another of his whoppers to keep 
people down here, now he s got em here. 
Blizzard or no blizzard, the old house is 
warm enough with the new patent furnaces ; 
they re sufficient to heat a church. I d 
rather be there than here, blizzard or no 
blizzard. It s sure to affect hides. I m 
going North as soon as I can just as soon 
as I can." 

But they persuaded him two days later to 
see them comfortably settled at the Pines, 
before he left them to go North. Sundown 
had commenced a very charming portrait 
of little Miss Dorothy, held in the arms 
of Clarisse, the jolly-faced nou-nou. He 
worked very leisurely at it, claiming that he 
could only paint for an hour in the morning 



138 Gramercg ffiarfc. 



on Dorothy s account. Florence designed 
the portrait as a surprise to Jack. For this 
reason she had suppressed the fact of Sun 
down s presence in St. Augustine, and had 
cautioned papa and mamma against making 
any reference to it. Sundown was especially 
clever in his young children s portraits. 

He painted them in pretty attitudes, 
caught, as it were, in a momentary swift 
evanishment. He painted Dorothy pulling 
apart the petals of a red rose. And if we 
were inclined to give a Hawthorne - like 
meaning to Dorothy s act, the red rose might 
represent in our minds the marriage of the 
little maid s parents; for was this Southern 
flight not entirely due to her? And the 
Northern flights afterward? 




came up from the South to 
remain only a few weeks at home 
before it became necessary again 
to seek out an abiding-place for 
Dorothy through the period of her second 
"dangerous" summer. Little by little 
Florence s life, and the entire family life, 
began to centre about this remarkable lit 
tle child, whose dainty curls and chubby 
fingers meant so much to both generations. 
Florence proposed a cottage near the sea, 
where all could be together, and papa and 
Jack go and come from business every morn 
ing and night. 

Jack was not averse to this, but he was 
not especially enthusiastic for the plan. In 
sensibly he had grown used to separation. 
The freedom of bohemianism is very attractive 
to some men; it had its attraction for him. 
He had met several actors and one or 
two famous actresses who knew the world, 
and whose wit and brilliancy amused him. 
139 



140 ramercg fcarfc. 

During the month of May, when the 
home-life began again, he often came home 
tired from business and ready to laugh 
and be amused, and found his wife wear 
ied out by a "headache." There seemed 
to be no response to his buoyant protesta 
tions. Florence, he found, was seldom able 
or willing to " do " anything. She did not 
care to go out. He could not persuade her 
to go to the theatre. The evenings seemed 
long, and, he was forced to confess, dull, 
passed in long discourses upon Dorothy, and 
in telling him what she had seen and done in 
St. Augustine. But her sweet girlish beauty 
remained. He still worshipped her, still 
reverenced her wishes. If he yawned as he 
sat in the dimly lighted drawing-room as 
she lay in some soft white dress upon the 
sofa, he concealed it admirably. She never 
dreamed he was bored not by her, but by 
the dull inaction. 

For a week he did not go out in the even 
ing himself. He read aloud from Dickens, 
from Mark Twain. He wondered why he 
was so unsatisfied. Had he not had suffi 
cient excitement on change all day? The 
long, solemn home dinner, the long, dim 
evenings Florence never liked much light 



CH-amercg park. 141 



in the room Came to be almost unendurable 
to him. Ho longed for something to com 
bat, to conquer, at least to stimulate him. 

He contrasted the gay social life at the 
pretty little jewel-box of Miss Franscioli on 
Riverside Drive. It was always gay there. 
The very fact that Florence felt so sure of 
him annoyed him. Her trust in him was 
almost too perfect, too implicit. In her 
sweet presence, a delicate flower, so pure, so 
good that in his better moments he almost 
heard seraphic voices singing around her as 
she lay, her jewelled hand in his at such 
times his queer jealousy of Sundown floated 
out of his mind and disappeared. They 
never mentioned his name. 

It was not always dull, and Florence was 
at times lively enough and like his recollec 
tion of her before marriage. But these were 
occasions when he brought a friend or two 
in to dine. She thought Disbrow immensely 
entertaining, and she was sorry for poor Mr. 
Challinor, whose wife was always away. She 
brightened up when they were present. She 
was herself. Why did she not appear as 
gay and as charming for him alone? 

Sometimes he teased her about it. " You 
never saltl so many good things in your life, 
10 



142 ramercg 



Florry, " he said one evening after his friends 
had gone, as you did to-night. You were 
like your old self. You laughed and chatted 
with Disbrow until I began to feel a bit 
jealous. You were amusing, and those odd 
stories about the alligator and the ne 



groes 

"Those I cribbed from Mr. Sundown," 
she laughed. " He had so many of them. 
You know we met him at St. Augustine and 
afterward at the Pines." Jack nodded but 
said nothing. " Don t you want me to be 
amusing, Jack?" 

" But when we are alone." 

" Jack, I love you. It s enough to have 
you near me. We need not feel we ve got to 
entertain each other, need we? The idea of 
married people setting out to entertain each 
other ! How ridiculous it would look ! Papa 
calls us a pair of spoons as it is. Isn t love 
enough, Jack? It s because I m so contented 
and so happy that I am satisfied. I want 
nothing further. What are theatres, din 
ners, dances, receptions which I always 
hate, anyway what are they compared with 
Dorothy and you? Ah, Jack, I have reached 
my goal it is happiness; you may call it 
dulness." 



&lt;5ramerc E&gt;arfe. 143 

He kissed her gently, then he lit a cigar. 
Yes, it was "happiness." 

The next night, after sitting in the semi- 
darkness with his wife for an hour after din 
ner, he grew restless and walked to and fro 
across the wide room. They had been silent 
for many minutes he feeling that somehow 
he was half-unconsciously drawing away from 
her, and constantly endeavoring to repress 
his sense of ennui. It is true the young 
man had few resources outside his business. 
He had come to the time when every day he 
closed his desk it was with a feeling, " Now 
my work is over, I can play." He came up 
town with a vague desire for amusement. 
Other men he knew were the same. Tom, 
Dick, and Harry were always telling him of 
some lark they had been on the night before. 
He was young, too, and vigorous. He was 
not averse to a little fun, but this coming 
home to read aloud, or to sit in the semi- 
darkness Well, for Florence s sake he would 
submit and endure a good deal ; but it became 
a dreadful bore. 

There came a ring at the electric door-bell 
and Sundown was announced. Instantly 
there was a great change in Florence. She 
sat up, fluttered across to a little oval mirror 



144 (Bramercg 



beneath a gas-jet, turned up the gas, di 
rected the heavy cut-glass chandelier to be 
lighted. 

" Oh, I wish I had put on my pink crepe 
gown," she exclaimed vexedly to Jack, " I m 
so particular with Mr. Sundown. He notices 
everything." 

Jack pulled at his mustache, watching 
her, and backing up awkwardly near the 
mantel as Sundown, in the affected Paris 
pointed beard, long hair, a lock negligently 
falling into his eyes over his high forehead, 
entered. 

It is the latest fad among some of our swell 
young artists and litterateurs to be mistaken 
for exiled Parisians. 

Florence greeted him warmly; Jack nod 
ded without extending his hand. Immedi 
ately they plunged into talk about Florida 
and Florida people. Jack, without a word, 
went into the library, where his father-in-law 
was asleep in his comfortable leathern arm 
chair, and grand-mamma was quietly reading 
her religious weekly. They heard Florence 
bubbling over with laughter. " Go in and 
see Mr. Sundown," said Jack. " I guess I ll 
run over to the club for a few minu tes. Mrs. 
Heath, much pleased, took off her spectacles, 



ramercs fcarft. 145 

rose, and went into the drawing-room with 
out a word. 

" Even she prefers that Paris lackadaisical 
dandy to me," he said to himself grudgingly. 
As he went out through the hallway, all three 
were laughing at one of Sundown s enter 
taining negro stories he had picked up in the 
swamps of Florida. 

Jack went out into the calm, clear night 
and saw the moon rising above the trees of 
the little park. It seemed to him a soft and 
sensuous May moon, full of a wicked delight 
of invitation to a voluptuous flight from 
everything that was considered particularly 
respectable. Around the square loomed up 
in dark outline the uneven line of brown-stone 
houses. Across the way rose an apartment 
building striking the starry sky at an enor 
mous height. There were many people pass 
ing in the street. There were crude east- 
side lovers lingering along on the outside of 
the high iron fence. The fountain was play 
ing in the moonlight. Inside the park were 
many little family-groups, sitting at ease and 
secure from intrusion. He was somewhat 
startled to hear the shrill voice of a boy cry 
out to those within: 



146 (Bramercg parfc. 

" Say, ye s think cause we s can t git in, 
ye sowns the earth, don t ye s?" 

He hailed a passing hansom, lit a cigar, 
and getting in, directed the driver to go to 
the City Club. Here he found Challinor, 
who had been having a rather " heavy " din 
ner with a few friends invited to meet Lord 
Sandbury, a young English nobleman who 
was in New York for the first time. 

Challinor grasped his hand and beamed 
all over. " Just the man we want, De Ford. 
Wife gone out of town again? Still here? 
How is it you re out? Ha, ha, old man 
been dining, you know forgive all I say. 
Now, I ve got Lord Sandbury on my hands 
this evening. He hates theatres, and s after 
nine, most ten anyway. I ve been telling 
him about the Franscioli, typical fin du 
siecle, eh? "We re going up there. She has 
a musicale to-night. Come along with us?" 

At first Jack refused. There is nothing 
so unpleasant usually for a man who hasn t 
dined and wined to any extent to have to do 
with men who are somewhat under the " in- 
flooence." 

Wine of any kind, even the cheap and 
harmless California clarets, were rarely seen 



ramercg frarfc. 147 

on Mr. Heath s table. Occasionally with 
great pomp, on a birthday or a holiday, the 
butler opened a bottle of champagne. Jack, 
although he sat at the head of the table and 
carved, was quite unable to alter this wine- 
less rule. It was the rule of Mr. Heath s 
youth in New England. 

Challinor dragged Jack into the elegant 
cafe of the club, where round the little tables 
groups of men were sitting, and ordered an 
other bottle. In the midst of a group who 
were listening to a rather broad story by Dis- 
brow, he observed a " leggy " blond youth 
with the faintest suspicion of a mus 
tache. It was Lord Sandbury. He was very 
handsome, very British, and wore a white 
vest cut rather high. He had already 
achieved a reputation in London by figuring 
in what may be termed a " coming out " 
divorce scandal. Many young noblemen had 
made their debut in that way. It gave them 
a social eclat , as was said. 

Jack soon warmed up with the wine and 
told a good story of his own. He told a story 
very well, and was already beginning to be 
in demand. Amid the laughter at the con 
clusion of his tale Lord Sandbury slapped 



148 GrametcB fcarfc. 

him on the back, and swore he must run over 
to London with him and tell that story to 
H. R. H! 

"Come," said Challinor, looking at his 
watch, " go with us, old man ; we will make 
a night of it!" 

Jack thought of Sundown and his pointed 
beard, and nonchalantly lit a fresh cigar and 
went with them. Lord Sandbury called him 
a " thoroughbred. " It occurred to him to 
give a dinner: Lord Sandbury was a great 
card. Then he thought: " Under the same 
roof with her?" And his vague fancy of a 
dinner fell into absurdity. 




!IIE new little house in Riverside 
Drive was one of a row of new 
little houses very stony staring 
little houses they were, looking 
like dry, rocky chasms over which a river 
formerly used to flow. The stone stoops 
were universally built out ruggedly into the 
street and architecturally made much of. 
Occasionally the stone stoop seemed to be 
larger than the house itself, to catch the eye 
first and to prevent the eye from going any 
farther. Nor did the little houses look 
particularly habitable. They were too " at 
tractive" to be comfortable, too "rocky" to 
be lovable, too fussy to become homes. A 
very " bridey " bride might have moved into 
one of them, but before very long she would 
have been willing to move out again, and 
into a plainer, more domestic-looking house. 
The groom, were he a man, would soon grow 
tired of rocky and bricky gingerbread-work, 
and consign the smart contractor who built 
miles of these enormities, and the smart 
149 



150 GramercE iparfc. 



dealer who sold him one at an exorbitant 
price, to everlasting perdition. 

It was before one of these rocky affairs, 
No. 2871, that their carriage stopped that 
gorgeous May night, with the full luxuri 
ous moon pouring its Avhite light upon 
the irregular fa9ade, and shining from 
the plate-glass windows. There were 
one or two other carriages standing op 
posite in the shadow, and they heard 
music coming out of the half-open win 
dows. 

TKej mounted the winding stoop. They 
pressed a. button and waited. 

" Er ers a typical New York modern 
house, Lord Sandbury," said Challinor, 
pointing to the facade with his cane. 

"And very dangerous, I m sure." 

"How so?" 

"Why, for children; if I was a lad, don t 
yon know, I wouldn t be quiet without 
climbing up that granite front, don t y 
know?" 

They laughed. " What ll he say to the 
typical woman inside?" said Challinor. 

" Is she also of this extraordinary stony 
character?" asked his lordship. 

"Yes, adamant," said Jack quietly. 



ftarfc. 151 



Presently the door was opened by a tall 
beautiful woman whose face was full of color 
and whose eyes flashed in the moonlight. 
It was Miss Franscioli herself. 

" Oh, so glad to see you Mr. De Ford 
of all men and Mr. Challinor!" 

"Lord Sandbury," said Challinor gravely, 
"the last importation." 

Lord Sandbury bowed : " Another Ameri 
can custom, I presume?" 

" For a hostess to receive her guests on the 
door-step? Yes," interposed Miss Franscioli 
quickly. " Especially as we have such a 
gorgeous front-stoop. Yes, Lord Sandbury. 
But I ll tell you something dreadful has 
happened in my household, Mr. De Ford." 
She seemed to add his name as if he were 
responsible for it. 

"What is it?" 

" A strike. My butler and all my servants 
have suddenly up and left me. Did you ever 
hear of such a thing?" 

"Perfectly astounding," said Challinor, 
amused, " that any one should ever want to 
leave you!" 

Lord Sandbury was much interested. 
"It s very odd, don t you know," he said, 
"quite American." 



152 ramercE ftarfc. 



" Yes, it s true too. Come in and let me 
tell you about it. They knew I was going to 
have a party. They waited until six o clock. 
Wasn t it abominable of them? All except 
my French maid, who would have struck 
too she s fully wicked enough only she 
can t speak 1 Anglais and couldn t under 
stand a word of what they said. I was at 
my wit s end, but I sent to Lelanne s, and 
the house is full of stupid waiters. Thus 
we shall be taken care of for a few days." 

"Very extraordinary!" laughed the Eng 
lishman. " Very American!" 

They entered the square hall, and found the 
house in dazzling brilliancy from the many 
electric lights of different colors. 

" They waited till they thought they could 
do what they wished with me," said the 
Franscioli, laughing. " The wretches ! But 
luckily I was not alone. I had Miss Brown, 
and my aunt, Mrs. Stead. Look at my 
hands; aren t they like beets? They have 
been up to the elbows in hot dish-water." 

She looked very charming as she spoke. 
She had so much life, such high color. The 
necklace of pearls she wore showed against 
her white skin, like clots of country cream 
on milk. 



C5ramerc 



In the highly decorated, richly furnished 
drawing-room were a dozen or so people, 
chiefly of the "smart" set. Mrs. Berrian 
Delaud was fanning herself in a corner and 
talking languidly with Mrs. Bronx. They 
all looked astonished to see De Ford enter, 
and delighted to see Lord Sandbury, whose 
"story" had preceded him. A Herr Pro 
fessor Volinski or Hair Professor, as Chal- 
linor called him was about to play some 
thing of Liszt s on the grand piano, which 
had its top raised to give a louder effect. He 
was high-priced, and the drawing card of 
the evening. Miss Franscioli took Lord 
Sundbury in, in triumph, and presented him 
to her aunt, Mrs. Stead, Mrs. Deland, and 
half a dozen ladies in order, paying no at 
tention whatever to the Herr Volinski. 

" Lord Sandbury is writing a book on 
America," she laughed, "and he is here to 
learn how we put down strikes. I don t 
suppose he cares two straws for music, but 
he must be kept quiet and listen." She 
turned to him and whispered Herr Volinski s 
outrageous prix pour deux heures. 

Herr Volinski immediately commenced to 
bang, and every one in the drawing-room 
and the library, which opened out of it, 



154 (Uramercg parfe. 



relapsed into attitudes of deepest interest, 
one might almost say, concern. After a half 
hour had glided away Miss Franscioli went 
back to De Ford, as he stood in the doorway 
looking rather bored. " Give me your arm," 
she said, " and we will go where we can talk, 
and where we can hear the music quite as 
well as here." 




XXII. 

[HEY passed through the hall, out 
on a deep, covered piazza at a 
tower on the side of the house, 
lit with many pretty Chinese 
lanterns. The night was warm. There was 
a cosey divan covered with rugs, above it a 
large Japanese umbrella. The next lot was 
not built upon, and the view was open to the 
river, which, below the Drive, floated dark 
beneath the moon, and was dotted here and 
there with boats and brilliant lights. For 
New York, the scene was sufficiently ro 
mantic. 

Miss Franscioli threw herself upon the 
cushions into a corner of the divan, and De 
Ford seated himself near her. 

" I reserve this for my friends," she said ; 
" I alone may come out here before the music 
is over. Isn t it quite delicious? Now, tell 
me why you are here alone?" 

He looked confused. " I wish you would 
not ask me," he said. " You sent our invita- 
155 



156 GramercE 



tion to my office. I did not mention it to 
Mrs. De Ford I forgot it." 

" It would have given me the greatest 
pleasure to have seen her here with yon. She 
is beautiful, and she is sweet and good. " She 
spoke rather coldly. 

There was a little silence. Herr Volinski 
had come to an andante passage, very tender, 
passionate, and much in keeping with the 
moonlight outside. 

"You can smoke here it is permitted," 
she said. 

He lit a cigar thoughtfully, listening at 
tentively. 

The pink light of the lantern fell upon her 
oval face and gave it a becoming richness of 
color. His guilty feeling passed away 
quickly. The desire to pacify and to please 
the beautiful woman near him predominated. 
He would even make love a little ; she always 
seemed to expect it. 

" I could tell you why I forgot," he said, 
" but you would not believe me. I forgot 
intentionally. I couldn t bring Florence 
here. You know why. Shall I tell you?" 

The music moaned out a passionate, de 
spairing cadence; it was the Moonlight 
Sonata. Their eyes met. 



&lt;3ramerc park. 157 

" I don t think I ought to listen to you, 
Mr. De Ford." Miss Franscioli put on her 
demure, young-girl manner. " I think I I 
ought to listen to the music." 

" You will laugh at my funeral, you will 
joke over my grave," he said solemnly. 

"I will if you put on your tombstone any 
of those absurd epitaphs I used to discover 
at Pye: 

"Davy died of eatin pickles, 
Sammy died of eatin sickles ; 
Both are dead, dear little twins, 
Cut off afore they had no sins !" 

" There was one I remember in an old buryin - 
ground in Alabama, not that it quite hits 
off your character," and she laughed. 

"Here lies Rufus, lyin still, 
For where lyin s not allowed 
Surely Rufus s lyin still 
Up bey ant the gold ing cloud !" 

Herr Yolinski had come to his loud for 
tissimo passages again. 

" I could tell you," persisted De Ford 
gloomily, " but I won t." 

" I will tell you one thing that is certain : 
I am sure that Northern men never know 
how to make love!" 
11 



158 &lt;3ramerc park. 

She pronounced her i sdeliciously, turning 
them, in Southern fashion, into ahs. 

" How should it be made?" 

"This way," and she gazed passionately 
into his eyes: "Jack Jack, do you remem 
ber the day you stopped my horse in the 
road? You were corning to Rye. In the car 
riage behind you were all you held precious 
in the world, yet you leaped out and risked 
your life to save mine! Jack, from that 
day to this, you have never spoken of it and I 
never have. I never dared. From that day 
you won me to do with me as you will. I 
love you ! You have my secret. That is why 
I came to New York to live. Jack ! I love 
you madly ! There, is not that pretty good?" 

He rose, trembling, and walked unsteadily 
to the railing of the wide piazza. " It s 
true," he muttered; " I wish it were not." 

She followed him laughing. " Am I not a 
fair actress, now? Did I not do that well? 
Oh, I ve been a good deal on the amateur 
stage in New Orleans." 

" Where have you not been, and what have 
you not done!" 

"Everything, everything! The world s 
a squeezed orange to me, Mr. De Ford or 
should one say squoze?" 



parfe. 159 



She looked up into his eyes with a subtle, 
inquiring glance. She was always amusing 
to him, and he burst out laughing. Then 
he said : " At least, you are never in ear 
nest. " 

" I dare not be." 

"You would dare anything!" 

" A fine compliment you would pay your 
hostess!" Her chin went up in the air. 
" Know, then, that I am one of the most timid 
of my sex; that most of all I need some 
strong, good person to cling to. I have dis 
covered a truth a woman cannot stand alone. 
The war has taught us Southerners some fine 
facts: it s united we stand." 

" It taught you not to struggle for inde 
pendence." 

" But how can the myriad, in-rushing tem 
pests of men be kept at bay? I say it is war 
always between the man and the woman. 
There are no half-way measures. It is war 
or love," and her eyes fell. 

"Yes, Plato, thou reasonest falsely." 

The young maidenhood of Louise Fran- 
scioli must have been a short, boisterous 
period, he pondered. Unlike most Northern 
women, she seemed to spring like a man out 
of a sensuous, not an icy, innocence. 



160 (Bramercg fcarft. 

As they stood by the rail in the moonlight, 
she whispered: " Must it be war, then?" 

He turned abruptly, caught her in his 
arms, and covered her lips with passionate 
kisses. She seemed half-bewildered that he 
had read her aright. She hung her lily head 
in sudden terror. 

" I must never see you again never 
never!" cried Jack huskily. 

In a moment he was gone. Thus in him 
had loyalty won the day ! He nobly fled from 
temptation, and virtue triumphed ! 

Miss Frauscioli, after he had gone, threw 
herself on the divan and sobbed all the way 
through a lively little song by a professional 
soprano, concerning amour, concours, deplore. 
At the end of it she rose, wiped her eyes, 
then clenched her two pretty hands fiercely. 

" He shall come back!" she cried angrily. 
" He shall grant me the opportunity, at least, 
to send him flying!" 

A few moments later Challinor came out 
where she was sitting beneath the red glow 
of the lamp. 

"Alone?" he exclaimed. "Then may I 
talk to you? My yacht Calypso will be in 
commission next week. Does your aunt en 
joy sailing?" 



&lt;3ramercg parfc. 161 

" Oh, she just dotes on it!" laughed Miss 
Franscioli, recovered now, and fanning her 
self leisurely. " But tell me, why did you 
bring that Englishman here?" 

" To marry you," said Challinor unflinch 
ingly. " He s after an American girl. He s 
rich, too." 

She rose and walked into the house. " I ll 
take another look at him, then !" she laughed. 
" For I am feeling very poor just now, in 
purse, in feeling everything!" 

" I wonder where my other friend I brought 
here is?" said Challinor, looking around 
vaguely as they entered the house. He 
seems to have vanished " 

" Mr. De Ford has a magnificent con 
science," she laughed. "He has gone to 
consult it!" 




XXIII. 

[E FORD, to do him justice, tried 
very hard the week following to 
prevent Dr. Chesney from carry 
ing off Florence and the baby 
into the wilds of the Adirondacks for the 
summer. But it seemed that Dorothy s 
throat could not endure the salt air of the 
sea. The fact once being admitted, there 
was no place where they could receive so 
much attention and care as in Dr. Chesney s 
comfortable hotel on Moon Lake. Dorothy 
began to sneeze the first week in June. 
They left, Jack accompanying them, for the 
North, three days after the sad event of the 
first sneeze. 

They dismissed the servants from the 
house in Gramercy Park, and installed a 
care-taker s family a queer, hopeless couple, 
with a crippled son, who rarely emerged 
from the basement into the upper stories, 
save by way of a gentle aroma of onions, or 
a suspicion of rank tobacco-smoke. The 
162 



iparfc. 163 



old house was closed the front door boarded 
up, except a small opening at the side. The 
blinds were shut, the shades pulled down. 
Jack s father-in-law arranged his business for 
a long absence. He was driven to it, he said, 
in self-defence. Another summer alone in 
the deserted mansion in Gramercy Park 
would drive him into Bloomingdale ! It was 
an odd circumstance that in rummaging for 
his pistol the first night after his return to the 
city the strange noises in the vacant house 
gave him some uneasiness De Ford found 
the card which Florence had always treas 
ured, the card which announced to the old 
couple in the Senegambia that they would 
always live together. He took it out and 
looked at it with a smile of sardonic gravity, 
and read : 



J/&gt; . &* Afrs. Schermerliorn De Ford, 
At Home, 

Every Day in the Week 

FOREVER ! Xo. Gramercy Park. 



"Forever!" he repeated slowly, twisting 
the card in his fingers and throwing it back 



ramercs 



in the drawer. He walked to the open win 
dow, and looked out over the trees of the 
park. Everything was silent; not even a 
belated cab rattled in the stony street. He 
had an intense spasm of loneliness ; even the 
crusty old gentleman and the servants were 
gone now. He thought next day he would 
try living in one of the noisy little upper 
rooms at the club which they let out for 
transients at exorbitant figures. He slept 
there two nights, and that was all he was able 
to endure in the close, hot, little chamber. 
At least, he could have the whole floor to 
himself in his own house, with the windows 
open, and a cool breeze blowing through 
from across the park. The heat had come 
on to stay, and he was very glad of the cool 
rooms and the cold shower-bath night and 
morning. He had promised to remain in 
the house and look after things, and he felt 
a little more comfortable even in his loneli 
ness in doing so. He had a sense of virtuous 
reaction. He immersed himself now in busi 
ness, running out of town for Sunday to 
some friend s cottage. After all, it was the 
old bachelor life over again only pleasant- 
er. He recalled the days of his boarding- 
house existence, when he sweltered through 



fcarfe. 165 



two torrid summers in an attic-hall bed 
room in Thirty-sixth Street. Life was very 
hard then after his father s failure and 
death. But he recalled that he was very 
hopeful then, and now all his hopes were 
realized. Was he any the happier? He 
was rich ; he had married a beautiful, dutiful 
girl, he was the father of the dearest baby in 
the world yet yet 

Occasionally he stopped on the way down 
stairs and out in the morning and glanced at 
Florence s portrait. The face was so pure, 
so calm, so noble ! Did he deserve that sweet 
girl s love? How had he behaved that night 
in May, on Riverside Drive? The fire of 
that stolen kiss still burned on his lips. 
Something whispered to him that he would 
never, were he her husband, have to separate 
a day from her side. Would she consider 
the daughter before the husband? Would 
he go home to her, to silence, to dim light, 
and stupidity? He realized that life with 
Louise Franscioli would not all be smooth 
sailing. There would be terrible rows, but 
the rows themselves would excite him, stimu 
late him. He would glory in subduing her 
or in being conquered by her. 

But all that was over now. He had trans- 



166 &lt;3ramerc park. 

ferred her affairs to another banker, after 
having the satisfaction of increasing her ac 
count to a good figure. lie wrote her a kind 
note, confessing much of his weakness and 
asking her forgiveness. This he afterward 
cautiously destroyed. He got Challinor, 
who was a good fellow, to see her and tell 
her that all, even distant friendship, must 
be considered at an end between them. Do 
Ford was a man of the world, and he knew 
well enough that the affair must either end 
then or it must end in disaster. Challinor 
respected his feelings and pitied him. He 
was not one of those who have much patience 
with the doctrine that a husband and a wife 
stand on an equal footing in such matters. 
It was not a doctrine that was openly scouted 
at the club. It was only tolerated, when 
advanced, with amused smiles. The very 
young married men, who were stranded in 
town for the summer without their wives, 
adopted it; but as the years went on all 
the rich married set very often bought 
diamonds and silver-ware at Tiffany s, which 
never appeared afterward to adorn the home 
circle, or the dinner - table. Challinor 
bought Rhine-stones. Some men were not 
even as generous as that ! 




lonely days went on, and the 
dreary, unremitting heat of Aug 
ust descended upon the avenues 
and the cross streets, making life 
unendurable. AYith the heat and the general 
desertion of the city by the better class of 
its inhabitants, a strange, uncouth, vulgar 
set of people seemed to take possession of 
things. The real "lady" disappeared. In 
her place came a loud, over-dressed creature, 
who seemed to be possessed of only one idea 
effrontery. In the elevated trains, the 
horse-cars, the theatres, this creature not 
necessarily the demi-mondaine was omnipres 
ent. Her jewelry was extremely prominent 
and prevalent. She it was who applauded 
the great "Buck," a base-ball divinity, as 
he " slid to second" in the ball-game with 
the Chicagos. She was on every Coney 
Island boat with her "lady friend." She 
dominated the bathing-beaches; she was al 
ways on the move. She never minded the 
167 



168 Gramercg iparfc. 

heat. She chewed gum in public. If ever 
addressed by accident, she was very apt to 
draw back with a loud hiss and a "Sir!" 
which made the unlucky male wither 
under her outraged scorn. On the whole, 
the extreme virtue of this creature seemed 
to be always over-prominent, and to be car 
ried as it were upon her sleeve for daws to 
peck at. 

He did not allow his nerves to be half so 
much upset by the enormous activity of the 
evening newspapers, with their racing edi 
tions, and their base-ball editions, and their 
extrys bawled by multitudinous boys; but 
the feeling as he went up and down town in 
the crowded elevated trains, that only the 
vulgar herd were left with him to toil in 
town, was hardly an agreeable one. At the 
club there were men enough. It was 
crowded, except Saturday and Sunday. 
There was a good deal of quiet gambling, 
contrary to club rules, and a good many 
men came up to town for it. There was a 
great deal of quiet drinking, too. Fat men 
and thin men, old and young men, sat, 
smoked, fanned themselves, and drank enor 
mous numbers of Remsen "coolers," getting 
up the courage, presumably, to roll home in 



ramercp iparfc. 169 

a cab, and let themselves into dark, gloomy, 
deserted houses, which they called their 
"homes." 

" Ah, men must work that their women 
may play," said Harry Talmadge one night 
at the club. " We are all sweltering here on 
Change every day, and our wives arc having 
a pleasant summer of it. Should they be 
here at work, too or should wo not work so 
hard or so long, and go out into the country 
and be with them? It s a difficult problem 
to solve off-hand. I have just spent a week at 
Narragansett Pier with my wife. It amused 
us to see that pretty Mrs. Breezey kiss her 
husband with so much abandon the Saturday 
night he arrived. The little wretch had been 
flirting outrageously with Lord Sandbury, 
who was there on a yacht all the week. 
Breezey is a sober, hard-working lawyer, very 
conscientious, and very devoted to his pretty 
wife. He was sweating and grinding at his 
desk all those hot days. What was she 
doing? He wrote her every day from Nassau 
Street; she wrote him just once. Thank the 
Lord ! all wives are not like Mrs. Breezey 
eh, De Ford?" 

"Which lord?" queried Disbrow in a dry 
tone. 



170 &lt;3ramercg park. 

To keep up appearances, De Ford said, 
with an air of interest, ignoring Disbrow, 
"No, indeed!" Generally Jack paid no at 
tention to what was said about wives. 
Florence was a very faithful correspondent; 
her letters generally gave a monotonous and 
strictly accurate account of what was done on 
Moon Lake every day from breakfast to bed 
time. There were always little commissions, 
numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., for him to attend to, 
which he turned over to the office-boy to 
execute. They were not, somehow, letters 
which he opened with any Avild avidity. He 
knew what they contained. Dorothy was 
learning to talk. She had now got beyond 
"ga ga" and "goo goo." This was inter 
esting enough. But from what appeared 
in this correspondence, life at Moon Lake 
was extraordinarily monotonous. Florence 
quoted to him a great deal that a certain 
Mrs. Mitchell said, who, it seemed, lived 
near them, on Twenty-second Street. She 
had struck up an intimacy with this Mrs. 
Mitchell, who appeared to be one of the 
wise, religious, motherly sort of persons, 
for whom he had an especial aversion. 
Florence wrote that she was a pillar of St. 
Pancras Church in Eighteenth Street. He 



ftarfc. 171 



really could not complain of the letters, but 
sometimes he felt he would like to resent 
Mrs. Mitchell s oft -quoted advice. He 
mildly expostulated once or twice, but the 
cold tone of Florry s subsequent letters 
caused him to hesitate. Women of the Mrs. 
De Ford kind the simple, good wives, who 
were " sure " of their husbands have lit 
tle perspective, and sometimes " bank " too 
strongly, as it were, upon simple-mindedness 
in their worser halves. The story of poor 
Breezey getting only one letter from his wife 
at Narragansett half lost its point for De 
Ford. So runs the world. What we have 
too surely we despise. What we have not we 
strive for. What we achieve appears en 
tirely insignificant. The French say that 
marriage is a long, hard highway, without 
a turning. At the end of the road is a sim 
ple, chaste tomb, surrounded by respectable 
weeping-willows. One sees this respectable 
finale painfully clear from the beginning of 
the dual journey. There are no episodes; 
there are no halts by the wayside to halt is 
not respectable! It is plain sailing. Is it 
not an enjoyable prospect ? What ! you doubt 
it? My dear sir, you are not respectable! 
De Ford left the club for " home " early 



172 OramercE fl&gt;arfc. 

that night. As he was going out Challinor, 
wearing a yachting-cap, entered. 

"Oh, I say, the very man I m after!" he 
laughed. " It is Thursday. To-morrow 
afternoon we leave Larchmont for Newport, 
arriving there next Tuesday. It only means 
one full business day, Jack that is, Mon 
day and we want you." 

" I wrote the Catherlys I would spend Sun 
day with them " 

" Do you wish to bore yourself to death? 
We are going to have Disbrow, Mrs. Bronx, 
Miss 1 won t tell you." 

He knew well enough. 

" There will be a full moon. If you like 
the boat, I ll sell her. You know the 
Calypso? So it will be a business trip!" 

" Challinor, I have turned my back on the 
Franscioli forever, as you know." 

" Do you fear her? She is said to be en 
gaged to Lord Sandbury, who is now at New 
port every one says so. She is quiet and sad 
enough of late, at all events. She hardly 
ever smiles; she is pensive. It is an oppor 
tunity for you to show your goodness of 
heart." 

De Ford was firm, however. It really 
would not do. He did not fear for himself. 



(Bramercg parfc. 173 

Like the average American that he was, he 
had the utmost trust in his own integrity. 
He believed in himself. Young man that 
he was not twenty-seven he had the 
" worldly " innocence. He thought he had 
sown his wild-oats when he lived at Cam 
bridge in the "fast set." He relied a good 
deal on that worldly adage, an adage which 
time may show to be more universal than 
was suspected. For why should there be 
"sex" in proverbs? And why should not a 
gay girl sow her wild-oats and ever after be 
good? The theory of the repentant sinner 
is Christian; the wild-oats theory pagan 
enough, but the pagans knew human life 
pretty well. 

De Ford had, besides, ambition, and the 
Franscioli could not help him. She would 
delay him. He would sacrifice a good deal 
for "success." A respect for marital vows 
still won credit on the street. It helped to 
procure loans; it oiled the wheels of specu 
lation for steady men, and assisted in 
strengthening the great idea of trust. 




XXV. 

next morning at the office he 
found that Catherly s wife had 
suddenly been taken ill, and that 
his visit there would have to be 
given up. He would, then, be obliged to 
pass another lonely and miserable Sunday at 
the club, looking over the daily illustrated 
papers? Rather than that he had about 
made up his mind to run down to Long 
Branch, and put up with the Jews, infidels, 
and Turks of the large caravansaries at that 
resort, when Challinor came into the office 
and renewed his invitation. 

" You must give up that visit to old 
Catherly s. We want you, Jack. You need 
have little to do with the Franscioli. I 
intend to devote myself to that pretty 

baggage " 

"Oh, no," said Jackj "it would be im 
possible, quite 

But Catherly happened in just then, and 
Challinor appealed to him. " Why, it dove- 
174 



ramercg iparfc. 175 



tails in perfectly!" said the former in his 
hearty manner. " Go, Jack, by all means. 
The market s dull; you can stay a week. 
My wife will be all right by next Sunday, 
and we ll expect you then. Go, my boy, 
and have a little out-door fun. You re too 
serious of late. Mr. Challinor, introduce 
him to a few pretty girls and get him to 
flirt. He used to be a good hand at that 
sort of thing. Jack, go along and have a 
good time and flirt!" 

" Yes, but I fancy it s just that sort of 
thing he s most afraid of," said Challinor 
dryly. 

Afraid? He? Why, he s getting to be 
an old maid ! Take him with you, Challinor, 
and set some of your pretty widows after 
him. Ha, ha! Stir him up! He s too 
much married. If he talks stocks, throw 
him overboard. Let him frivol gad! He 
was a gay boy once. He could drink us all 
under the table, but now bah! He s too 
staid too much married and he s getting 
to think he s a coming Little Wizard. Off 
with you both, boys, and have a good time!" 

The good-natured, jolly Catherly almost 
pushed them out of the door in his eager 
ness. 



176 (Sramercg parfc. 

De Ford yielded at last to Challinor s im 
portunity. They went out and had a pleas 
ant little lunch together at Del s, on Beaver 
Street, and the pint of champagne frappe 
helped to quiet his conscience very well. 
When Challinor left him, he promised to 
meet them at Larchmont, where the Calypso 
lay at anchor, that afternoon. 

He ran up town to pack his valise, and 
the old Gramercy Park house seemed to him 
actually to frown with dismal prophecy. 
A ray of light fell across Florence s portrait, 
and he could see her counterfeit present 
ment, her face so pure and noble, from the 
stairs as he mounted them. He paused a 
moment. 

"It is as if Florence were dead!" he said 
aloud, realizing sadly that the old, perfect, 
intertwined life and love had departed. He 
found a flask containing brandy in his room, 
and took a long pull at it. " Hang it!" he 
said, "as Catherly says, I m getting to be 
an old maid! I never wanted to come here 
into this great house. It s never seemed 
quite like home to me. I wish, I wish 
Florry and I were poor as church-mice, but 
living, happy and always together, in a cheap 
Harlem flat! Married! It s a joke! I 



&lt;3ramerc fcarfc. 177 

hardly see as much of my wife as Sundown 
does!" 

He was delayed in finding his flannels and 
his yachting-shirts. Everything vexed him. 
He missed the right train, and when he ar 
rived at Larchmont he had to persuade a small 
boy to row him out to the Calypso, which he 
saw was rapidly weighing anchor, prepara 
tory to starting. When he reached the 
yacht, he found they had almost departed 
without him. As the struggling small boy 
rowed him alongside, Challinor called out to 
him : 

" \Ve almost gave you up. Miss Franscioli 
persuaded us to wait five minutes longer. If 
it were not for her, we would have taken 
advantage of this western breeze and started 
eastward. We would have left word we 
would pick you up at New London." 

Miss Franscioli leaned over the gunwale, 
bowing and smiling serenely. She was in 
a charming white yachting-suit, her cap 
trimmed with gold lace. Challinor stood be 
hind her, in comfortable white flannels. Dis- 
brow was sitting in a wicker-chair, talking 
with Mrs. Bronx. There was an elderly lady, 
dressed in black Miss Franscioli s aunt in 
the background, who was known as Mrs. Stead. 



178 (SramercE park. 

The yacht was large and roomy, being built 
for comfort rather than speed. Jack quickly 
mounted the companionway. Miss Franscioli 
gave him her hand. He felt a strange joy 
in reading her eyes again. She had not 
changed. It was almost as if an interval of 
months had not elapsed since the night of the 
miisicale on Riverside Drive. 

" I knew you would come back to me," said 
her dark, welcoming eyes, full upon his. 
But there was, too, a fine innocence in them, 
he thought. 

There followed dreamy, cloudless days, in 
which for the first time in his life De Ford 
felt himself grappled in the secret, passionate 
love of a reckless woman " who dares." It 
Avas new to him to be courted in this way. 
He felt its subtle power. It was not over- 
delicate, over-refined ; but it was powerful 
and genuine. It was not the calm, peaceful 
love of his wife condensed into a sudden ex 
cess; it was a new, wild, absorbing passion 
of the soul. He felt himself nearing the 
brink of the precipice, and drew back and 
hesitated. There were kisses lingering on 
her ripe lips for him; there were languid, 
soft glances which told him much. After a 



(Bramercg f&gt;arfc. 179 

day or so, her feeling was almost undisguised ; 
it was like an open engagement. Every one 
smiled ; but no one, even the silent quondam 
aunt, made any objection to this innocent 
pastime of devotion. Finally, they were al 
ways getting into quiet corners by themselves. 
He read to her Dickens and Mark Twain, as 
he had done to his wife. Did this bore him? 
He did not think of the books. Her hand, 
warm and soft, lay in his beneath the 
shawls. . . . Presently he began to be 
lost, as well, in the bewildering passion she 
developed in him. He sailed smilingly down 
the stream with her. He could resist no 
longer. He loved her. . . . 

Challinor used to sit and coolly observe 
them over his cigar for half a hour at a 
time, as they sat laughing and chatting be 
neath her white sun-umbrella, on the deck 
by themselves. It amused this young man 
of the world to see his friend Hercules play 
ing with Omphale. " Half the fun of the 
trip would be gone without De Ford," he 
kept saying, enigmatically, the afternoon of 
their start. 

" Yes," said Disbrow, " I think she will cap 
ture him, unless her own sincerity will make 
her aim less sure. She is a madcap ; passion 



180 &lt;3ramerc park. 

her element. Bali ! if all young women were 
like her there d be no business done. Men 
must have less love and more peace and com 
fort at home than she would grant. What 
is her place?" 

Challinor replied: " Our civilization, with 
all its devotion to home life, leaves a poor, 
mean, little niche for her and her passion. 
They call it wicked, I believe, because it is 
not meant for home consumption." 

" But is not our home-life largely coming 
to an untimely end? A new club is formed 
every day. Men are never at home now. 
Women are always away somewhere recu 
perating. I say our home-life is over. 
Rightly, because it is narrowing, depressing, 
unprofitable 

"Yes, yes," said Challinor. " It affords a 
poor sort of happiness made out of dulness. 
We want something better. We are crazy 
for excitement, in this Jin du siecle." 

" True, we live at white heat. That is, 
more of us do. It is more universal than 
formerly. Our best citizens now attend 
the wicked French ball and the Arion each 
year. Our churches are filled with penitent 
women. All our old theological lines are 
being broken down. To me it is delightful 



ramercg iparfc. 181 

to live in the midst of this upheaval. I joy 
in it, I participate iu it. For one thing, 
there is an end of the thraldom of marriage!" 

Both laughed. Challinor, at the thought 
of Mrs. Disbrow at Sioux City; Bisbrow, at 
the thought that Challinor would soon have 
to follow suit. 

" There are two separate courses in the 
menu, or rather two dishes in one course 
marriage and liaison," drawled Challinor. 
" But of course the old marriage dish is best 
for the State. But hang the State! That s 
what we are saying now. We are after the 
individual happiness. Just a hundred years 
ago it was the opposite. We cared nothing 
then for the individual, but only for the 
State and we invented a fine one, which we 
think we are going to stick to until 2000 ! I 
make a guess, myself, that we will let the State 
go and help along rather the individual free 
dom. So a woman shall no longer need the 
protection and the confinement of a home. 
Home will be all abroad. I see it in our 
city-life." 

Mrs. Bronson, who sat near at hand, whis 
pered, leaning forward and looking at De 
Ford and Miss Franscioli, who were seated 
in low chairs on the deck near the foremast : 



182 rameucE iparfc. 



" Look at them! They are positively spoon 
ing! There is home-life for you!" And 
they all laughed. 

They were accustomed to bathe every day 
off the yacht those who could swim. Miss 
Franscioli had a "stunning" bathing-suit, 
and she never could persuade herself to miss 
her daily dives overboard at rising and again 
at noon. 

One day the Calypso was becalmed in the 
midst of the Sound. She hardly seemed to 
move. Her great white sails flapped idly to 
and fro, and the time seemed ripe for a 
plunge. 

Miss Franscioli disappeared in her cabin, 
and reappeared in due time, having a white 
bath-robe about her " stunning " bathing- 
dress. Only Do Ford followed suit, and pres 
ently the mermaid was swimming with the 
merman far in their wake. 

"See!" said Mrs. Bronson, "how they 
want to be alone and get as far as possible 
from the rest of us even in the water!" 

But a little breeze rippled across the placid 
blue water. 

"Drop a boat there!" ordered Challinor 
hurriedly. "Quick, men! This air is car- 



183 



rying the yacht ahead fast." It was some 
time before the boat was lowered, and the 
swimmers observed the yacht calmly sailing 
off, apparently without the slightest regard 
for them. 

Jack began to grow very tired. He turned 
on his back to float. He was not a great 
swimmer. The over-exertion had tired him 
out. Miss Franscioli was fully able to swim 
ahead and catch the yacht. Jack looked so 
pale and fagged that she saw he was unable 
to make much further effort. 

" Put your hand on my shoulder," she 
said. "Keep cool, Jack." It was the first 
time she had directly called him Jack. 
"Can t you trust me? Put your hand on 
my shoulder. There that s it! Now they 
are sending a boat!" she said encouragingly. 

"I m tired out," Jack spluttered and 
gasped. 

Then his hand slipped from her shoulder, 
and he quietly slipped out of sight beneath 
the waves. 

Miss Franscioli raised her hand and 
shouted "Help, help!" and dived for him. 

The boat was now coming fast. A sailor 
leaped into the water, swift as a bird in 
flight. 



1*1 Cramcrcp 



ChaJlinor, observing them from the stern 
of the Calypso with his opera-glass, cried: 
" By Jove, he s gone under! And by Hea 
ven she ? s dived after him!" 

" Depend npon it, she will never let go of 
him, wherever they are!" And Mrs. Broii- 
son, who did not at all realize the danger of 
the situation, gave a little laugh. 

Mrs, Stead was below, asleep in the cabin. 
It is probable she would have laughed also 
had she been there. It was all so very amus 
ing. But Challinor s face was a picture of 
intensest agony. Had that mermaid twined 
her arms about him also? He tore off his 
coat, and prepared to leap overboard on* the 
stern of the vacht. 




XXVI. 

JIIE had saved his life. He was 
hers now. She could do with 
him as she pleased. 

He had whispered these words 
to her as he lay in the cabin propped up on 
pillows that afternoon, and Louise Fran- 
scioli sat near him on a pile of the thick rugs 
of the floor. 

" If I had not caught you and you had 
risen, I meant to clasp my arms about you 
and go down, down forever into those sun 
less, awful depths." She said this lightly, 
as if it were nothing. 

" You will have found that it was bet 
ter that," he said languidly, "better for 

both " 

" Drowning is an easy death; I don t fear 
it. I was thinking not of myself nor of 
you, but of La Madonna. " 

"Ah, yes, so was I," he said half-apologet- 
ically. 

Challinor came down into the cabin, 
185 



186 GramercB par??. 

"It s a dangerous thing," he said, " to dive 
off a yacht that is not anchored. A friend 
of mine Colby was drowned that way. A 
puff of wind comes, and you can t catch the 
yacht again. You were lucky, Jack, and if 
Miss Franscioli had not kept you afloat 

De Ford, who was still sick and weak with 
the salt water he had swallowed, nodded his 
head and said nothing. 

" This comes of modern athletics for our 
girls," laughed Challinor. "Bravo! bravo! 
You shall be presented with a medal of the 
American Life-Saving Society as soon as we 
reach Newport!" 

"I shall make you carry out that state 
ment," she laughed. "At Newport you say 
you are also to present me with Lord Sand- 
bury? Perhaps he will yield when he sees 
the medal!" 

Challinor was disposed to tease a little. 
" Pray, now having saved him, what did you 
save him for ?" he laughed. 

" To send him at once to his wife and 
child, wherever they are," said Miss Fran 
scioli decisively. She spoke as if she were the 
young man s guardian. She sat, her long 
hair, still wet, hanging down her back, her 
hands clasped about one knee, in school-girl 



(Sramercg iparfc. 187 

fashion. Challinor thought he had never 
seen so much soul, so much disinterestedness 
in her face before. Odd man! He had been 
long in love with her himself. Who could save 
and help himself with such a beauty? She 
was a siren to sing and draw men on the shoals 
and rocks, to ensnare men s unwary hearts ; 
always so gay, when he knew her heart was 
in the depths; free with the freedom of 
youth, looking always out of her beautiful 
eyes for sympathy, and getting so often 
only a gross form of love, of adoration, from 
men. He knew her to be good, but careless 
of her reputation as the wind. Had she been 
poor she would have been a great actress a 
second Adelaide Neilson. But now she had 
too little incentive in life, and no self-direc 
tion ; she was drifting. She knew and did 
too much. She covered too much ground. 
She read everything. Challinor mused 
within himself, and thought how strange it 
was that she should care to remain long away 
from her Jin du siecle Paris which was her true 
home. 

" Is it this stupid, commonplace De Ford, 
with his manners of a prince and his good- 
looking mustaches, which holds her?" he 
asked himself. " That strange affinity ! 



188 Cramcrcg 



Ah, why did she select him? It will bring 
much sorrow to that lovely young madonna 
of his -- " 

De Ford did not go to Canada until Sep 
tember; then he took his wife and Dorothy 
and nurse on the trip down the St. Law 
rence to Quebec and Montreal. He never 
mentioned Miss Franscioli s name, although 
he wrote her every few days letters full of 
rhymes and nonsense, and containing here and 
there a line of boyish passion. He was kind 
and dutiful with his wife, for he never ques 
tioned his own quiet, sincere love for her and 
hers for him. She was always the same 
always sweet, gentle, fond never rising to 
great heights or depths. To be with her 
gave him calm and peace. His conscience 
did not prick him. Ho enjoyed everything 
they saw with her eyes, placidly, with a mild 
indifference. 

The affair of the Franscioli was such a 
different book from his book of marriage. 
Perhaps he never would have turned to it 
had not the loneliness of his life in town that 
autumn Dr. Chesney thought the Lenox air 
best for Dorothy driven him in self-defence 
(his evenings were insupportable), to seeking 



fcarfc. 189 



some amusement, some "relaxation." He 
was not fond of whist ; and whist is a great 
preventer of mischief for the idle, and a 
strong support of the conventions. Billiards 
was warm and monotonous work. He was 
rather fond of driving, and the Riverside 
Drive is one of the finest in the world. 

When, after their visit at Lenox, they re 
turned to Gramercy Park for the winter, in 
late November, the change had come. . . 
Miss Franscioli now sometimes wrote, in 
her feverish, brilliant, hopeless letters, sent 
to the club, " My husband in the sight of 
God!" 



13 




XXVII. 

I HE remainder of this little story 
is soon told. It is not pleasant 
to tell, and Jack De Ford does 
not figure quite as one would like 
to have him. But he never was quite the 
hero. Perhaps he s no better, no worse, 
than a number of young married club-men 
in New York to-day. There s a fashion in 
these things. " Lead us not into temptation" 
is a true prayer ; " Lead us out of temptation" 
is also a true cry of the soul, and the man 
who, largely through the loneliness of living, 
largely through separation from his wife, 
largely through the nervous overstrain of 
daily business, which causes him to yearn 
for continual excitement, falls into sin the 
man who finally breaks away from it, and 
triumphs over it, is at least deserving of 
some credit. 

This New York world of ours at present 
appears to care little for its home-life. 
People rent their houses with their furniture 
190 



(SramercE park. 191 

in them, and then go to live in another 
house and use another s furniture. People 
live in huge flats and hotels, and there ceases 
to be any privacy. People never stay long 
in one house or flat. Change, change, rest 
less change is what is going on ! Harmonious, 
tuneful dwellings change to shops and flats! 
Neighborhoods alter year by year. Our wives 
go to the country for long periods twice 
thrice a year now. When we come " home" 
we are very apt to dine for months with 
our families in a good restaurant. We go 
abroad, wander over Europe, and come back 
with still greater abhorrence of " settling 
down." Philadelphia sets us an example of 
home-life, and we turn up our noses at that 
staid town and poke fun at its " stupidity." 
Our restlessness invades and pervades the 
country round. The good folk in our smaller 
cities must needs do as we do, and family 
separation is the order of the day. We are 
so full of energy, insistence, excitement. 
We must enjoy, to the very utmost, every 
thing that life affords. Our young men 
want to be "in the swim," to be seen at 
Delmonico s, or at fashionable clubs. It is 
never their ambition, these dandies, to go 
into politics, or to succeed in business (their 



192 &lt;3ramercg park. 

fathers only ambition), or to have a career. 
It is rather to be seen and admired by men 
and women. 

Club-life has come to stay, in city and 
country. A man may not see anything 
whatever of his family, and yet not be 
thought odd. Not at home, he s at the 
club, or at business, or out of town. His 
wife does all the visiting the receptions, the 
dances. She carries his card. If he goes to a 
watering-place with his family, separation 
is even there the order of the day. He finds 
a " Casino" there, where he may betake him 
self. It is " uxorious " to be devoted to his 
wife. It s " silly" to be too fond of his pretty 
daughters, according to them. A manly 
man is no longer self-respecting if he lingers 
long with his family. Every one smiles and 
says it is "old-fashioned." God grant that 
this old fashion of the peaceful, family-home 
may not utterly depart from our national life, 
as it is rapidly doing in our greatest city! 

As time went on, De Ford joined many 
clubs. He rarely remained home now in the 
evening. At his club he would drink a little, 
gossip with his friends, then disappear. 
Miss Franscioli, tiring of the rococo little 
house on Riverside Drive, came down and 



ff&gt;arfc. 193 



took a charming apartment on lower Fifth 
Avenue. Their liaison was still a secret. 
She kept her place in society. She was a 
wit; she was wanted. She refused many 
advantageous offers. Many suspected the 
reason ; but no one knew. 

Meanwhile little Dorothy welcomed a little 
brother " Jack," and the " madonna " denied 
herself more and more to the world. She 
pleaded family cares. It was odd that Sun 
down, who had continued to be very devoted, 
ceased his visits rather suddenly. Perhaps 
he had ventured too far, and made an avowal, 
and the sweet madonna had gently reproved 
him. Sundown married, and after that he 
and his wife were frequent guests at Gra- 
mercy Park. He used to say at the club that 
Florence Do Ford was the one noblest woman 
in all the world, and then he would sigh and 
hint darkly at her husband s conduct. To 
do her justice, Florence pretended to be in 
absolute ignorance of Miss Franscioli s exist 
ence. She never suspected Jack. She 
never knew nor cared to hear about men s 
"dual lives.",, She still kept her husband s 
image high as on a pedestal. She loved him 
because he loved her, and the years rolled on 
in quiet, domestic happiness. It was quite 



194 Gramercg frarfc. 



true he loved and appreciated her more than 
ever. 

There were moments when De Ford felt 
very content. But there were days when his 
hollow eyes, and the little blue rings beneath 
his eyes, gave signs that care and anxiety lay 
heavy on his heart. Through the summer 
months, when Florence and the children 
went into the mountains Mr. Heath had 
finally determined to build a handsome cot 
tage in Franconia he felt his load lightened. 
There was not that dreadful suspecting 
father-in-law to confront him every day at 
dinner. Grandpapa was getting older 
now, and crotchety, and nervous. There 
seemed to be a standing enmity between 
Jack and him. They rarely spoke to each 
other. In private, to his wife, the old gen 
tleman was often very bitter against his son- 
in-law. He was certain of nothing, but he 
had heard vague rumors. Men downtown 
love to gossip at lunch-time quite as much 
as their wives uptown. " Why did Jack go 
out every night so? "NVhy was he never at 
home. And where did he go Sundays?" He 
often said to his riding-club, or his fishing- 
club down on Long Island, or " well, he al 
ways had a d d ready excuse!" 

Florence did not complain. She was not 



ramercg iparfe. 



the complaining kind. Far better, ye 
sweet young wives, to find endless fault and 
have it out with your wayward husbands! 
You are too delicate with these fellows; you 
fear to offend. Besides, habit soon gets to 
be second nature. Florence was not very 
strong. Dr. Chesney recommended early 
retiring and long night sleeps. It was nat 
ural for Jack to run off to some of his clubs 
of an evening. It was the thing to do. 
Florence always had a Xew York girl s liking 
to have her husband "in the swim." She 
might be, as she said laughingly very often, 
"a back number;" but Jack must go out, 
must be in all the swellest clubs. In her 
innocence she suspected no danger for him. 
She never knew exactly at what hour his 
coupe drove up in the early morning and he 
let himself in. She never asked. She even 
upbraided herself for her semi-invalidism. 
" There is no home-life for poor Jack in the 
evening," she said, and it was true. "He 
has to go somewhere. The doctor makes me 
go to bed at nine. So he goes to his club, 
or the theatre, or he and his friends play 
whist. I wish I was well and strong poor, 
poor Jack!" 

But the end came at last; a stroke of 
lightning out of the clear sky. 




XXVIII. 

ACK, indeed, had had many re 
markable escapes. Once Flor 
ence discovered a love-letter, 
but he swore it was one a friend 
had given him to laugh at. It was addressed 
"Dearest Self," and signed "L." He 
laughed it off, and confessed it was a note 
his friend had stolen in joke out of Mr. 
Challinor s pocket a letter from Challinor s 
wife. She did not mistrust him; she had 
not begun ! 

The beautiful Miss Franscioli had her 
seasons of despair, of harrowing remorse. 
Like many women of great feeling, she 
was moody and impressionable; she was al 
ways at the greatest height of happiness or 
in the depths of woe. She found it really 
true that a woman to live, to exist, needs, 
more than a man, the approval of every one 
even of her own conscience ! The day of her 
birthday came around, and brought with it 
many sad reflections. She was alone in the 
196 



fcarfc. 197 



world; her father and mother were dead. 
She was now twenty-four. Her future was 
dark and sombre, yet she could not break 
with De Ford. That would kill her. There 
would then, she said, be nothing to live for. 
Yet nearly all their joy now when together 
came of champagne. She was not herself 
until they had dined and she had had her 
"pint." Again and again she had formally 
dismissed him ; they had parted for weeks, 
and again and again she had passionately 
called him back. She had moments of exalte 
feeling, when she would rush off to some 
church and fall on her knees, praying God 
to forgive her. She would lie awake all 
night, praying for Jack s beautiful wife and 
children, and then appear at Savarin s, down 
town, at lunch next day, dressed to perfec 
tion, send a note for him, and carry him 
away for a grand frolic. 

He often told her that she brought him no 
good; that she was his evil spirit; that she 
would be his ruin. And then she would 
moan and cry on her knees, and swear she 
would kill herself. It kept him at last in a 
continual state of agitation, of excitement. 
He never knew when she would send for him 
cr, what in secret he most dreaded, when 



198 Gramercg 



a telegram would come saying she had been 
found dead of morphine, which she took 
habitually. The day of her birthday came 
to this poor, tempest-tossed young woman. It 
was now two years since they nearly drowned 
in mid-Sound, and Jack, to make her a little 
happier, went to a diamond merchant in 
upper Broadway and bought her a magnifi 
cent diamond star. It cost him a pretty 
penny. At the same time, as if to make 
amends in his own mind, he bought his wife 
a hairpin of Etruscan gold. He was in 
somewhat of a hurry, being invited out to 
dine, having just left the Franscioli in tears 
and morbidly protesting that he no longer 
loved or cared for her ; and he was hastening 
home to dress for dinner. He gave direc 
tions to the clerk to have the jewelry sent. 
He took out two cards, on one of which he 
scribbled: 



For Louise F. 

MR. JOHN SCHERMERHORN DE FORD. 
" To the girl I lore best in the world. " 



He slipped this in an envelope and gave 
it to the salesman without directing it. He 



(Bramercg iparfc. 199 

was going out to a little stag-dinner at the 
Knickerbocker Club, given to his friends by 
an apprehensive young man about to marry. 

lie rejoiced that he had hit upon a plan 
to make both women happy that night with 
out him. 

When he came home late from the dinner 
he went directly to bed, not caring to dis 
turb his wife, although he saw a light turned 
low in her room, and thought once, as he 
stood outside her door, he heard a sob. 

The next morning he dressed rather late, 
and hurried downtown to business without 
seeing any one of the family. 

In the afternoon, he received a curt note 
from the Franscioli, thanking him for the 
gold pin of a kind, she remarked, of which 
she had "dozens." The joke about calling 
her his" wife," she remarked, was rather stale. 

De Ford jumped to his feet. " Good 
God!" he exclaimed, " they ve sent my wife, 
then, the diamond star and the card!" 

He paced up and down the length of his 
office, trying to think what to do. It had 
all come of his haste and the clerk s stupidity. 
Had he known of it before he went down 
town, he might have in some way explained 
it satisfactorily to his wife. He was prepared 



200 (Bramercg 



to tell her that in the way of a joke, merely, 
he had lost a bet to Miss Franscioli of a hair 
pin against a box of cigars, and that the card 
received by Florence addressed to " Louise 
F. " was a mistake. It should have been 
addressed to her. Then the sentiment, 
" To the girl I love best in the world," was 
perfectly proper. He would admit that he 
had sent a plain card with the hairpin to 
Miss Franscioli, but that in his haste he 
had put the latter s name "Louise F. "- 
on the card intended for Florence. To be 
sure Florence would be surprised at receiving 
such a gorgeous cluster of diamonds out of a 
mere sudden whim ; but he would kiss her, 
and explain that, by an easy subterfuge. 
She believed his subterfuges! But Miss 
Franscioli s note, thanking him for the pin. 
"of which she had dozens," was mailed at 
eleven A. M. It was now four. Had 
Florence been to see the jeweler, or had she 
gone to the Franscioli s apartments? Per 
haps it was too late to lie now. Perhaps he 
had broken the eleventh commandment: 
Thou shalt not be found out! 

He sat down and cursed his luck, and 
himself for a fool. What an idiotic inspira 
tion it was to try and satisfy his conscience by 



(Sramercg parfe. 201 

making the small gift to his wife in repar 
ation for the splendid present to " the girl 
he loved best in the world!" 

He was quick and skilful of trick and 
fence, and he was soon hurrying up-town, 
first to the apartment of Louise, in order to 
formulate some plan of action. He found 
that she had just gone out, leaving word that 
she must see him immediately. She had 
left a note for him, saying: 

"Your wife has been here, and has left a mag 
nificent diamond star, from Sparcus . I don t 
know what it means. I have run out to Sparcus 
to find out. LOUISE. " 

"The devil!" he exclaimed, and walked 
restlessly about the exquisitely furnished 
drawing-room, in which he had passed so 
many wildly happy hours. He observed a 
silver tray containing cards nearly all were 
from men. Challinor had called very 
frequently of late. He wondered if he it 
was who had caused Louise so much disquie 
tude. She had said to him once : " He is 
willing to divorce himself and marry me 
you are not! " But he knew that she would 
really never marry any one, and never felt any 
particular jealousy on Challinor s account. 



202 6ramerc iparfc. 



He waited half an hour, and Louise did 
not return. Good Lord! what a mess he 
had made of it! How would Florence act? 
It would corne to her at last, like lightning 
out of a clear sky. He worried, thinking 
it would cause a break-down in her health. 
Good God! it would kill her! He would 
lie, periure himself, swear that Louise Fran- 
scioli was nothing to him. There was an ex 
quisite Parian marble statuette of the Venus 
of the Capitol in a corner. His eye kept 
falling on it. He would have been glad to 
hurl it out of the window. The whole 
female sex seemed horrible to him the 
enemies of his wife! He put on his hat 
restlessly, and took up his stick and went out 
down the elevator. The boy seemed to smile 
covertly and to be extra-deferential. Was 
his disgrace noised abroad already? He 
walked up Fourteenth Street, through the 
crowds of shoppers. Ugh! the sex was in 
tolerable! What coarse, ugly faces; whut 
headgear; what monstrosities of dress! He 
stopped at Sparcus , and he found that two 
ladies had been there making inquiries. Ho 
would go home and face the music. It was 
nearly six o clock now. He hurried up to 
Twentieth Street. He mounted the steps of 



(Sramercg iparfe. 203 

the old Gramercy Park house, for the first 
time sneakingly, with head down, feeling like 
a truant school-boy returning to school for a 
thrashing. The outer door was ominously 
closed, not against the weather, for it had 
cleared away and the air had grown cold. 
He tried his latch-key, but the door was 
bolted on the inside. He nervously rang 
the electric bell, and stood looking furtively 
about, across the little park with its thin 
covering of snow. He wondered if the 
neighbors were watching. He was glad there 
were no houses directly opposite to spy upon 
him he was grateful to the little park! 
Presently the door opened. John the butler 
cautiously looked out. " I m sorry, Mr. De 
Ford," he said, " but the orders is not to ad 
mit you." 

The insult was so monstrous that it was 
like a blow in the face. J3e Ford made a 
sudden fierce grab at the fellow s collar, but 
his hand slipped, and the door was closed in 
his face. He swore and hurried away to the 
club. Here a letter had come from his father- 
in-law for him. He tore it open and read : 

" No. GRAMERCY PARK, } 
FEBRUARY 16TH, 189 f 

"SlR: What has occurred to-day, and is now 
known to Florence, has been the outcome of 



204 (BramercB parfc. 

what I have known a long time. I know 
everything. I have said nothing, but now 
Florence knows all, too. I have laid before her 
the plain facts, believing it best. She is natu 
rally much crushed and overcome. I take it on 
myself to say that we do not wish any scandal. I 
propose taking my wife and daughter abroad at 
once, first instituting proceedings quietly for 
divorce. In what you have done I admit there 
has been a certain respect for public opinion, 
which I will try and keep up in these legal pro 
ceedings. You will please name an address 
where your effects may be sent at once, quietly 
and without any publicity. 

" I am, sir, regretfully yours, 

"S. R. HEATH. 
" P. S. New York is not thank God ! Paris. " 

He crumpled the letter in his hand. He 
knew the stern old Puritan well. He could 
be depended on for a rigorous performance! 
So Florence would get a divorce? His friends 
in the club were eyeing him, and he must 
preserve an outward calm. He had felt such 
security! His love for Florence had never 
faltered he thought he recognized the be 
lief that he loved her in a finer, higher way 
than ever before. The dross of his nature 
had been give to Louise. Man had a com 
posite nature: what did this old Puritan, 
whose yea was yea and nay nay, know of these 



things? He went into the dining-room and 
sat down alone, his head falling on his hands. 
Some men at a table near by were laughing 
and joking about him? He hardly knew 
them. Said one his old truism : " A man 
and his wife ought never to be separated for 
a day." What mockery it seemed! 



14 




XXIX. 

IS friends who dined near him at 
the club noticed his silence, his 
uneasiness at dinner. 

"It s the market," said one: 
" I hear he has lost a deuced lot of money 
lately." This was true enough, but it 
did not affect him. He sat and stared at 
a dismal portrait of an ex-President for ten 
minutes, until some one spoke to him. Then 
he started up with a smothered cry and 
walked out of the room. He stood on the 
brink of life, looking over the precipice. 
Should he go to the beautiful, adorable wo 
man he had so long passionately loved? 
Somehow, even the drowning of his despair 
in champagne and pleasure no longer tempted 
him now. 

"How is Mrs. De Ford?" he heard some 
one say at his elbow. " Won t you tell her, 
please, that I am coming to her reception to 
morrow?" 

Was it true that he had been ruthlessly 
206 



&lt;3ramercB ffmrfc. 207 

thrust from the door of his own home? He 
and his father-in-law had never got on well 
since that first year. But not to permit him 
to cross the threshold was positively cruel. 
He had no idea the old gentleman was so 
vindictive. He ordered a "pint," and it be 
gan to make him feel very angry. He had 
been too stunned to be angry hitherto. He 
took another "pint," then had a cab called. 
He drove at once furiously to Gramercy 
Park. He rang at the door-bell, and, when 
the servant opened it, pushed past him 
fiercely. De Ford was a courageous fellow, 
and he was now at a high nervous tension. 
He was deadly pale, his eyes burned like coal ; 
he was very handsome now; he looked like 
a handsome devil ! 

" Tell Mrs. De Ford I am waiting to speak 
with her," he said sharply. The servant 
cringed before him. 

" She s not here, sir." 

" Tell Mr. Heath I wish to speak with 
him " 

The servant noiselessly withdrew. He was 
standing before his wife s portrait. He 
glanced at it fascinated. The face hum 
bled and quieted him. In the sweet holy 
glance from her madonna-like eyes there 



208 (Sramercg park. 

was, he thought, forgiveness and peace. He 
turned to the other side of the room : there 
on an easel was Sundown s new portrait of 
Dorothy in the nurse s arms, which the ar 
tist had only lately finished and he had not 
seen. For two years it had been in the 
artist s studio untouched. Tt was very pret 
tily done. He walked over to it, studying it 
critically. 

"Divorce!" he said aloud. She would 
get a divorce! Would she be so cruel to 
Dorothy? Had he been cruel? He had 
deceived her, but had he ever spoken an 
unkind word, or done anything unkind ex 
cept this one great thing? Was the catas 
trophe to annihilate him then? Who was 
directing this harsh policy of hostility? 
Here was his home he was driven from it. 
It was his no longer! How beautiful and 
elegant it seemed! 

He seemed to be kept waiting an uncon 
scionable long time. He sat down, took out 
his letter, and read it clear to the end. 

" New York is not thank God ! Paris 

He thought over a number of men who 
sinned against their wives, he felt, far more 
deeply than he. " Well, it s getting to be 
like Paris," he muttered. At that moment 



&lt;3ramerc ftarfc. 209 

his father-in-law came downstairs and 
entered the room. 

The old gentleman s face was set and stern. 
His Puritan origin showed itself in the hard 
lines about his grim mouth. He was re 
lentless. De Ford felt that, as for him, he 
had committed the unpardonable sin. 

" Well, what do you want?" asked the 
elder huskily, as he pushed aside the por 
tiere. 

" I want to know by whose orders I am 
shut out from my home," said De Ford hotly, 
and rising. 

" By mine! This is not your home. You 
have chosen another " 

"That affair is ended," he said, equivo 
cating. 

" Our decision is final." Papa compressed 
his lips firmly. 

" But my wife my children I have a 
right to see them!" 

" My daughter is ill. She is not here. 
She has gone to the house of a friend. The 
children are with her." 

" Where are they? At whose house?" 

" That I decline to state at present." 

De Ford could not help admiring the old 
gentleman s dignified bearing. It was that 



210 Gramercg parft. 

of a righteous judge. There was no relent 
ing. He turned to go. 

" I beg of yon not to see my daughter for 
the present. The shock has been too great. 
The affair has nearly killed her. You see, 
she didn t know you " 

" But this this is cruel." 

" The cruelty is only on your side." 

" But this house " 

" My dear sir, it is not a club ; and we do 
not regard matters of this kind here as they 
are regarded, probably, among your associ 
ates. This is a Christian family, sir an 
American family and we are not living in 
Paris " 

With that the old gentleman turned ab 
ruptly and left the room. De Ford stood 
a moment in the hallway, twirling his hat. 
"So so," he muttered, "the end has 
come " 

As he got into the cab, he directed the 
driver to go to No. Fifth Avenue. 

Louise Franscioli received him with all 
the compassionate tenderness of a sister. 
She saw that his love was dead. She wept 
in silence a long time. 

" The end has not come until you have 
seen the madonna," she cried. "And she 



&lt;3ramerc fcarfc. 211 



will forgive you! if I never see you again." 
Jack bade her good-night shortly after, and 
went out to a neighboring hotel. 

" The end has come," he kept saying to 
himself. He had not dared tell even her of 
the bad state of his affairs in Wall Street. He 
was a ruined man ! 

As he sat up through that long night, 
sleepless, the wistful, sad face of Louise came 
to him. It seemed to him that she had 
taken of him along farewell. Every one was 
leaving him, then? The end had come. 




XXX. 

E end had come to everything! 
Jack De Ford went to his hotel 
room that night fully realizing 
that a chapter, if not the final 
chapter, in his life was closed. Indeed, for 
several hours, as he paced to and fro, he had 
a mind to close it to make it final. The 
firm of Beach, Catherly & De Ford would 
fail next day, and be posted in the Stock Ex 
change. His divorce would soon be public 
news, and there would be a column or so in 
the newspapers with a scare-head : " Another 
Good Man Gone Wrong." Ah, it was all this 
eleventh commandment, " Thou shalt not be 
found out," which he had broken. He felt 
no sorrow, no repentance, no remorse espe 
cially; only, the end had come. 

Such men as he need the sharp blows of 
public contempt, of direct, manifest dislike, 
to make them feel remorse. The " sin " of 
loving two women did not present itself. 
" Was it a sin at all?" he asked himself. It 
was not in Utah. It was not in Bible times. 
212 



&lt;3ramerc iparfe, 213 



It was now, only by convention. He had 
never ceased loving his wife. He loved her 
now. He would give up the other " illegal " 
woman forever to satisfy this convention. 

He had a small silver-mounted pistol, 
which he had carried for some time. It lay 
on the marble centre- table of his hotel room. 
There were seven loaded cells in it. He 
might easily discharge one of them into his 
brain. The effect of his death on his wife 
would be to make her regret her course; to 
cause his father-in-law to lead the remaining 
years of his life in bitter self-accusation. 
But he had no heart for it. He was too old 
for suicide. He had seen too much of the 
world. He knew that his life had not 
ended. There was still enough in him 
to live and cry for "success" and final 
triumph. He still hoped that he would be 
forgiven for the children s sake. " There 
will be," he said aloud, "still another chap 
ter; perhaps several." He would wait and 
see. 

Weeks and months passed. His madonna- 
wife made no sign of relenting, but she com 
menced no legal proceedings. The failure 
was not as bad as he had expected. Failures 



214 Gramercg 



on Wall Street are queer affairs. Friendly 
brokers rally and help the insolvents into a 
few " good things ; " in a year or so the failure 
is forgotten, and the firm is on a better basis 
than before. So it was with Beach, Catherly 
& De Ford. It came up again smiling. It was 
known that De Ford had had some trouble at 
home. But a man s private character or pri 
vate family affairs are rarely inquired into 
minutely on Change. His friends stood by 
him. He was fortunate again and grew rich ; 
so quickly do these ups and downs occur, 
where " business " is gambling on a large 
scale. 

He did not break at once with Louise 
Franscioli. But he saw her, afterward, never 
alone. She seemed very much changed. 
One evening, after an absence of four days, 
he called at her apartment. She was gone. 
She had taken the Wednesday s French 
steamer, and French leave, the day before. 
She left him a sad, passionate little note, 
blotted with tears. In it she said, " If I go 
away forever, she will take you back." 

It was noticed at the club that Challinor 
had suddenly sailed for Europe also. But 
Challinor was a man who did things largely 
from impulse, and he had the habit of going 



ramercg path. 215 

away suddenly to the ends of the earth at a 
moment s notice. Later on in the winter, 
his yacht, Calypso, received orders to sail for 
the Mediterranean. 

De Ford, after that, became very cold and 
hard and indifferent to everything except 
business. His pride would never permit his 
making overtures of reconciliation to his 
wife, and his pride led him to the ambition 
of bequeathing an enormous fortune to his 
two children. To this, as the second year 
of their separation began, he consecrated 
himself with the devotion of an anchorite. 

And what, then, is the end of this family 
history? After a third year of separation, 
did kindly intervening friends persuade the 
young wife and husband to forgive and for 
get? Did little Dorothy, as so often occurs 
in the play, lead " papa " to " mamma," and 
gently place " mamma s " hand in his for rec 
onciliation? Or was a divorce obtained, 
and did Jack marry again, and, Mrs. Sun 
down dying, did Florence tearfully yield to 
the artist at last? 

In real life, dear reader, these definite if 
not entirely satisfactory conclusions do not 



216 (Sramercs 



generally happen. In real life, longer 
periods of time seem to elapse before 
anything is decided. The fact is, that \ve 
would have to pry into the future to learn 
the final denouement of this little domestic 
tale. At present Florence is living very 
quietly with the two children, Dorothy and 
Jack, Jr., with the old folks in Gramercy 
Park. She does not go out at all, but is 
entirely absorbed in her children. Jack, Sr. , 
never visits the old house on the Park, but 
the nurse takes the children to see him in 
his bachelor quarters on upper Broadway 
every Sunday afternoon. They are pretty, 
charming little things, and they ask poor 
Jack many awkward questions. 

The blow of his disgrace was so shocking 
to Florence that it very nearly shattered 
her life. She was ill at the house of her 
friend, Mrs. Mitchell, a long time; but she 
recovered, and as the time went on she 
found consolation in religion and in charita 
ble work, as well as in her children. 

Once or twice, husband and wife have met 
by accident in street-cars or in public 
places. Mrs. Heath, who accompanied her 
daughter, has always spoken to Jack at these 
times. Once they mot face to face at the dog- 



(Bramercg park. 217 



show. Mrs. Heath burst into tours, and 
pressed Jack s hand very kindly. There 
was never any doubt in his mind but that 
his dear old mother-in-law had long since 
forgiven him and that the reconciliation, if 
it comes, will come through the mediation of 
this sweet old lady. She was not a product 
of New England ! Florence, at the times of 
these accidental encounters, avoided his 
glance and turned away. She has something 
of her father s Puritan nature. He, stern 
old New Englander, never was so contented 
in his home-life before. There is no one 
now to say him nay. He tyrannizes a little 
over his household, and directs a good deal 
in regard to the early religious training of 
Dorothy and Jack whose name, by the way, 
he is exceedingly desirous of changing to 
Samuel after himself. It is rather a pleas 
ant sign, however, that Florence herself de 
cidedly refuses to permit this. It is curious 
sometimes to see this sweet-faced mother 
lavish the most tender caresses on the sturdy 
youngster, her favorite, calling him again 
and again by name, and crying over him too, 
when she thinks no one is observing her. 

As for Do Ford, it may be said that he 
has once for all sown his wild-oats. He lives 



218 (BramercE parfc. 

very quietly now at his club, dines out a 
good deal with his intimates. He is very 
reserved and rather silent. He has made, 
and is making, a great deal of money. He 
talks seriously of going to Denver or San 
Francisco o live, is very silent concerning 
his personal affairs, and is regarded as a ris 
ing business man. He isn t forty yet, and 
doesn t drink. Ah well, there are some 
hopes for him! 

"And further this deponent saith not." 



END. 



T 



D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 

APPLETONS SUMMER SERIES, 1891. 
OURMALWS TIME CHEQUES. By F. ANSTEY, 
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T^ROM SHADO W TO SUNLIGHT. By the MAR- 

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ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM. By KATE 
^* SANBORN. 

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^ STORIES. By BEATRICE WHITBY. 

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O 



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N THE PLANTATION. By JOEL CHANDLER 
HARRIS, author of " Uncle Remus." With 23 Illus 
trations by E. W. KEMBLE, and Portrait of the Author. 
I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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London Saturday Review. 

" Altogether a most charming book." Chicago Times. 

" Really a valuable, if modest, contribution to the history of the civil 
war within the Confederate lines, particularly on the eve of the catastrophe. 
Two or three new animal fables are introduced with effect; but the history 
of the plantation, the printing-office, the black runaways, and white de 
serters, of whom the impending break-up made the community tolerant, the 
coon and fox hunting, forms the serious purpose of the book, and holds the 
reader s interest from beginning to end." New York Evening Post. 

J J\ CLE REMUS: His Songs and his Sayings. The 
* Folk-lore of the Old Plantation. By JOEL CHANDLER 
HARRIS. Illustrated from Drawings by F. S. CHURCH 
and J. H. MOSER, of Georgia. I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" The idea of preserving and publishing these legends, in the form in 
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severed races." London Spectator. 

"We are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at 
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a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable contribution to our 
somewhat meager folk-lore. . . . To Northern readers the story of Brer 
(Brother Brudder) Rabbit may be novel. To those familiar with planta 
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to them when they were children, Brer Rabbit, the Tar Baby, and Brer Fox 
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New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 






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